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New here and i Need help (guideline) (consultancy)
hi Everyone,
My mother is age 69 and diagnosed with Breast Cancer Last November which is now spread to lungs as per CT scan and now She is on Stage 4 .the doctors here told me they cannot cure this but with chemotherapy they can just retaliate (or just buying us some time).i want to know what are the alternatives rather than chemotherapy ? here where i live Doctors are Arabs and Sometime ( i lost in translation ) . they told me here what i understood so far they cannot cure,cannot do surgery or any Radiotherapy With a stage 4 patient they Just gave me a option of chemotherapy.what i want to know is there any alternatives ? because with our first day of chemotherapy which was 20/12/2016 she started with palliative treatment with docetaxel first cycle 100MG/M2 and the dose will be modified according to her tolerance <(this is what doctors said ) just after the chemo She felt so weak and powerless (yes doctor told us about the Side effects).My questions
Cancer started from the right breast and now in lung is chemotherapy treatment now stops it from spreading ?
isnt it right to do the breast surgery (which doctors are not doing here ) and than the cancer will be in lung only which can cured than?
what kind of diet (food) will be good for her ?
any recommended treatment or therapy ?
i can attach her medical report if you guys like to see idk its right to do here or not ? i am new here and defenetly do not know how things works here.but i just need Some advice i already Lost my Father and 2 brothers because of a heart disease in our family but with this breast cancer which is now stage 4 we have no experience how to deal with it. i just need Some answers,advice,anything to not lose hope.
Regards
Razool
Ps. if any one find this message please reply if you can help or guide me thanks. (Pardon me For not using medical language here Because i dont understand Much of it )
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Newbie
Top User
Razool,
I'm saddened to hear about your mothers diagnosis.
We are not Drs here, but only patients and their caregivers who share our experiences, so we cannot give medical advice. Showing us her medical records would be like walking up to someone on the street and asking them to look at the records.
If she can be seen at a large cancer center, they may have some treatment to offer besides just chemo. There are many clinical trials going on here in the US and in Europe, but I don't know if any of them are offered in Qatar.
I do not have experience with breast cancer, but options are usually limited with stage 4 patients because the cancer has spread. Even though they only see the spread right now in the lung, there may be other small areas that are too small to see on the scans. Since chemo spreads throughout the body, it can hold back, or even kill, many of these small tumors.
You ask for hope - the only thing I can tell you from my own experience, is that hope is most important because without it you will stop trying. You need hope to see what doors open to you when one door closes. I was originally told that I had 5-7 months unless chemo and radiation would shrink my tumor. With hope, I took the chemo and radiation and the door opened for surgery. I had no evidence of cancer for two years, but it returned and I was stage 4 like your mother. With hope, I did a strong chemo again for 6 months followed by a year of a milder "maintenance" chemo. At that time, I was losing hope and had little strength to continue chemo any longer. With what I felt was my last hope, another door opened and I found a cancer center that offered an experimental procedure. I will find out the results of that procedure at my three month follow-up appointment this Friday. Today I am stronger and feel better than I have at any time in the last 4 1/2 years. Hope must rise up from within, but maybe telling your mother my story will help that happen.
Best wishes to you and to your mother.
Bob
7/12 DX stage 3 pan can (adenocarcinoma) @ 65 - borderline resectable
8/12 - 10/12 Chemo (GTX) & Stereotactic Radiation
12/12 Whipple - R0 margins, 2/29 nodes pos.
1/13 - 5/16 Vaccine clinical trial - randomized to control group - vaccine showed no benefit
2/13 - 8/13 Gemzar for 6 months
Quarterly scans - no evidence of disease to 10/14 - spot on lung being watched - possible infection 2 months on antibiotics
3/15 - spot larger - probable met - surgery planned
4/15 - PET prior to surg - recurrence & lung mets - Surgery cancelled - EUS w/ FNA showed adenocarcinoma - Stage 4
5/15 - 9/15 Folfirinox @ reduced dosage - Stopped treatment after 11 infusions due to neuropathy
10/15 - 8/16 maintenance 5-fu every other week
8/16 - stable disease on both CT and PET/CT - chemo holiday while other treatments explored
9/16 - lung biopsy confirms pan can met,
10/16 -NanoKnife to pancreatic bed -PET after Nano showed new met in hilar lymph nodes - SBRT to both lung & lymph
4/17 - PET/CT showed significant disease progression, multiple lung mets, pancreatic bed tumor has grown
5/17 - Started hospice care - striving for acceptance
Stay busy and live life to the best of your ability.
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Last year my aunt, now 52 was diagnosed with breast cancer. I read your concern and felt of sharing what my cousin and his family went through. My aunt, she was stage 3. And started spreading to other organs. They went for chemo to stop from further spreading. It was effective. Cancer stopped spreading furthermore. But my aunt was so tired and felt low after every session. She was not able to get up from her bed. She was depressed. There is no history of any breast cancer in our family. We couldn’t figure out how to take care of her. We all helped her but that wasn’t just enough. That’s when they decided to go for a professional help. They hired a [URL="https://www.c-care.ca/services/"]senior care in Toronto[/URL] to help take care of her. They were very professional and helped her in every way possible and it really worked. They helped her get out of the depression too. She took the whole cancer situation very well. And she is doing pretty well now.
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