Mom has year to live

agnady08 · Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 10:36 pm Post subject: Mom has year to live

my mother has been battling cancer for about a year now. Last May she was diagnosed with Stage 2 Colon Cancer. After a colonoscopy and PET scans she had a mass in her upper colon. They removed portion of it (the term or area I dont know) and started chemo early June.

Months went by on the treatment and she went in for her followup in November. That is when they found a mass on her liver. 2 tumors on left, one small one on right. Around Jan 7th this year she had her left side of liver taken out. And this is when the pain started.

After the surgery, in Feb. she had a stent put in at the duct in liver to colon. She had some sort of blockage which cause her billiruben count to be 10. From when she had the liver operated she ate very little. The stent helped for the meanwhile.

March we desided to move back to NY from Mississippi due to not having family down south besides my brother and I. She was very dehydrated on flight in and went to hospital next day in Long Island. This is where they found the mass in her Pancreas. It took days for docs to come up with a diagnosis due to the fact her recent Xrays in MS didnt match ones in NY. MS was not showing anything alarming in pancreas area.

They wanted to do a bipass from her stomach to colon so she can get nutrients and start chemo again. Which she had not had it since Dec. They transfered her to Mount Sinai for the procedure only to decide on putting another stent in. This time in the pancreas area almost parallel to last.

2 days after being released she went right back into ER unable to keep food down. Now they decided to put her on pain med to help her eat and chemo, but today she was given a year to live and the chemo will only help her eat.

Is there any legal way to go about suing Mississippi hospital, or anyone, for not catching this? It came down to she has Pancreatic all along which caused the Colon and then Liver. For two hospitals not to catch it until the well known Mount Sinai just boggles me. She is only 52, and yes a smoker I know that has prob played a big part. They did not catch this for a year and been milking money off us for wrong diagnosis's. That could have saved us more time. (even tho the years an estimate at that)

wannaknow · Senior User Joined: 19 Oct 2007 Posts: 118

agnady08:
Probably don't want to hear it and can understand the frustration.
But with multiple appearances of cancer & time between - it's like a chicken or egg theory.
Once the cancer takes a hold, there are cells they can see but in most cases many more cells they can't........then as you have experienced, it does not take long for them to take off & form tumors - chemo or not.

Try to put the legal stuff aside for now - as you will have that option later.

And focus 100% of your attention on your Mom - she needs all of You. Help to minimize the symptoms either with treatments or Rx.

Then spend quality time with her doing things that will take her mind & attention away from cancer & medicine. Even small stuff helps - an ice cream cone, a movie, etc.

Good Luck

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