Gastric metastasized to Liver - Level of Pain?

MicheleF · New User Joined: 17 Apr 2006 Posts: 4

Two weeks ago, my father-in-law went to the hospital with flu symptoms, and was told he had stomach cancer that had metastasized to the liver. There is little to no healthy tissue left in the liver, and it is in all near lymph nodes.

He is in NO pain right now, just tired. He's 71, had by-pass 3 years ago, and has 48% heart muscle functionality.

Doctor says that giving chemo now should help prolong life - AND provide a better quality of life.

Family can't get a straight answer from the Doctor as to whether or not prolonging life by 3 months or so would be worth the agony of chemo for two of every 4 weeks during that time span. "Patient's decision". Which is true, but without all the facts, how to make a decision?

If anyone out there has a similar situation, can you please let me know, (realizing that all patients are different) some idea as to the level of pain that gastric or liver patients might endure towards the end?

Thanks very much.

mousa

Dear Michele,

My heart goes out to your Dad-in-law and to the family. Your D-i-L has a very difficult decision to make. Find out what chemotherapy drugs would be prescribed and read up, on the internet, about the side effects. Ask your doctor and the oncologist what to expect re side effects and pain.

When my husband was told that he had only a few months I was more concerned about the state of his soul than anything else. Somehow or other, all the right people were suddenly there to show the way. Happily, 22 months later, my husband is well. He had 10 heavy chemos and is now on oral chemo. But his cancer - stage IV gastric - had not metastazied to the liver.

My thoughts and prayers are with you all. Please ask all your D-i-L family and friends to send good thoughts and pray for him. I think it is also important that your D-i-L now forgive anyone who has done him wrong and he must forgive himself for any hurt he, himself, has caused. Clear out all that stuff (if any) to make way for healing

Love, Val

missumom · Experienced user Joined: 05 Jan 2006 Posts: 65

Hi Michele,

This is a difficult decision to make. When my mom was diagnosed with cancer in the pancreas, gallbladder and liver, she was hopeful to all the procedures being suggested by her doctors. We were informed that this type of cancer is very painful because there are tons of nerves in the area. The doctors said that my mom's life expectancy is between one week to a year. When the doctor told her that chemotherapy was the last chance to prolong her life (possibly shrink the mass and stop it from spreading), she opted for it. She was able to decide for herself and the family respected her rights.

After her first dose of chemo, she was vomitting for 48 hours straight. She couldn't eat nor drink, and her usual pain intensified that she needed additional morphine doses. Her second chemo was postponed because she was too weak at the time, but she gathered up her strength and took on the second chemo. She didn't vomit, but was nauseous. The second chemo also intensified her pain which required an increase of morphine. A couple of days after the second chemo, my mom started experiencing chest tightness (angina). She was given blood thinners for the angina which caused internal bleeding. She became semi-comatose and passed away.

There are a lot of questions in my mind that I choose to just put aside because they would never bring my mom back. Firstly, I would liked to have tried other pain relievers before putting her on morphine because it weakened her tremendously and at times, just made her so groggy you couldn't even have a conversation with her. If we didn't let her have chemo, would she have lived a little longer because in my opinion, the chemo just worsened her condition. It made her weak, intensified her pain and caused other side effects that just quickened her death.

After my mom's death, I realized that there was no way of saving her, but in my opinion, the chemo just took the quality of life that she had left away from her, but it was her choice to go through it and I can't regret her decision.

I don't know if this long post of mine helped you any (I hope it somewhat did). Talk about it as a family and I guess, bottom line is, it's the patient's decision.

Take care...

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