Metastatic liver cancer

I am SK, daughter of father and helping to write my fathers thoughts online. Myself I have been struggling how to deal with father (yet he has the cancer not me). I tried to be as practical as possible with getting as much help inside the house and helping out as much myself.

Quality of life

Although father has a metastatic liver cancer, I started buying his favorite treat: "eclair", a pastry thing with lots of pudding and chocolate. Not really ideal for somebody with a bad liver, yet I was so happy to see a smile on fathers face when he saw the pastry.

Of course, after a few days the "magic trick" didn’t work that well anymore, but variety in pastries kept the smile and the appetite going

For sure I was not beating cancer with nutrition, but my father had lost a lot of weight lately (also due to the diarrheas of the cancer research and the vomiting), so my idea was: the more father eats, the better, and it will help against constipation.

I also made a lot of soups of which my father said "they are delicious"… Yet to find out a few days later father telling me: "next time you make soup, try to make soup like mother does"

All in all it is not easy to really find out what quality of life is by asking father, its just when the smile comes on his witty face, that we know we are doing something right…

But I found a lot of relief in reading the below "I have been there - done that" story of another terminal cancer patient:
(from: http://groups.google.tm/group/alt.support.cancer/msg/
81d9761e97472ded?hl=en&, with very special thanks to J from http://groups.google.com/group/alt.support.cancer), which I will post in my next post.

This is not a "how to fight cancer and win" story, yet a story how to win-win yourself and the cancer patient in these difficult times. I am happy when I see a smile on fathers face, and every smile is an extra dose of good health… ( I agree I do write things as if they are not as bad as they are…) If things do look messy, tha is because we all feel messy.

Technorati Tags: Cancer | Secondary liver cancer | Cancer treatment | Cancer story | Beating cancer with nutrition | How to fight cancer and win

Yesterday was a silent day: I woke up to eat, went back to bed, and did this 3 times… Today already is a new day…

This cancer makes me sleepy or is it that the damage caused by the cancer to my liver is making me more tired? So in the end it is not the cancer bothering me, but the cancer bothering my liver, and my liver bothering me?

Not much news from the palliative care people either…

All I know is that I don’t know much, and I am getting fed up with asking questions about cancer: it is not leading me on any path of cancer treatment nor cancer recovery. Back to bed for now, hopefully I feel more energy this evening.

My dear wife has "always" been the boss in the house, and I was the boss outside the house: meaning that she took most of the decisions and life went on pretty fast and good.

My wife has troubles going up the stairs to our bedroom where I spend most of my time before the evening, so next week 2 hospital beds will be placed in the living room. There was a big quarrel with my kids where to put the bed, yet this is where the beds will go.

Palliative care

Then just now my wife heard about palliative nursing care : every time she puts these words in her mouth, she starts crying, so I don’t want her to deal with it.

I have a lot of constipation these days and am in quite some pain. I take as much Dafalgan as I am allowed to and try to stand the pain as good as possible. I am very happy when I can play cards to try and forget the pain.

Technorati Tags: Cancer | Secondary liver cancer | Cancer treatment | Palliative care | Palliative nursing care | Bowel obstruction palliative care