Why does Jackie passes away at 43 and Trish at 43 is a metastatic liver cancer survivor?
Please leave your hugs and support for Paul who shared his secondary liver cancer story at Can chemotherapy cure metastatic liver cancer?
Paul’s metastatic liver cancer story
Hi
I’ve just lost my partner Jackie 43yrs old to Cancer Metastatic Liver Disease with an unknown primary.
Jackie had symptoms for only four and a half weeks before peacefully passing away at home.
Jackie never smoked or drank and had a active lifestyle looking after two Children 10 and 5 yrs old.
My self and my children are devastated.
Paul
Please leave your hugs and prayers in a comment. If you have been in a similar situation, please leave a comment.
Why is Trish treated for cancer and Jackie isn’t?
When I read Trish’s secondary liver cancer survival story, I see 2 huge differences with father:
- father had an unknown primary, Trish has a clearly defined rectum cancer
- father was 75 when diagnosed, Trish 43
My first idea was: Trish is so much younger and stronger than father, so it’s understandable that her cancer survival rate would be better than father’s.
But Jackie is also 43…
So it’s obvious that the "unknown primary cancer" plays a huge roll in making the decision to treat and cure cancer or not.
I do remember father’s oncologist saying that since the primary cancer was unknown, his chemotherapy would have been a very aggressive cocktail in order to try to kill the cancer nobody could find in the first place.
Trish’s primary is rectum cancer; clearly defined and she has been given Oxaliplatin, 5FU and recently Irinotecan for chemotherapy. If 3 chemo medicines are needed for rectum cancer, I cannot even start to imagine what is needed to kill an unknown primary cancer.
In end up comparing treating metastatic liver cancer with primary rectum cancer as getting hit by a sniper:
- you know it is going to hurt and
- you have been told the bullet goes in and out fast without killing you.
I compare treating metastatic liver cancer with unknown primary as being shot from top to bottom with a machine gun…
- you know it is going to hurt extremely hard and
- you hope and pray the bullets won’t kill you…
Why is the primary cancer so important when treating secondary liver cancer
Metastatic liver cancer is a cancer that is sitting in your liver after traveling
around from its source ‘where it was born’.
Making sure no new cancers travel to your liver means you need to kill the cancer at the source.
In Trish case, her source is rectum cancer, which has been treated with Radiotherapy. Once that is successful, she is on a "good road".
Suppose in an ideal situation father would have had his liver tumors removed, without having found nor treated his primary cancer, it would be just a matter of time before the metastatic liver cancer would return.
How to treat an unknown primary? Logically to be sure, you need to treat it as if it was a colon cancer and lung cancer and prostate cancer and … You will end up being given an extremely aggressive chemotherapy as any other cancer treatment won’t be a valid option.
Too many people are passing away from metastatic liver cancer. Again all our hugs and prayers for all of you and today in particular for Paul and his family.
@Trish
Thanks for sharing, hugs and prayers for you and your family and have a nice wedding 🙂
Some GPs are quite numb when it comes to digging to find solutions. My dad’s GP also told him "the bleeding hemorrhoids" story… meanwhile dad had surgery of a humongous colon cancer that so far has spread to the lymph-nodes.
(for those getting confused: my father in law is the one that started this website about his metastatic liver cancer and has passed away for about 20 months now).
XOXOXO to Trish and all of you!
Hi,
Thank you for the hugs and kisses.
My heart goes out to you Paul & children. When I thought I only had 6 months to go, I was okay with my fate, but I my biggest concern was my husband and my daughter, I knew that these 2 people would be the most affected by my demise, it was the thing that most made me cry. I hope you have heaps of support Paul, OXOXO.
My Mum’s partner (who she’s marrying this Saturday) entered my Mum’s life a little before I was diagnosed. He had lost his wife a couple of years beforehand to cancer.
From memory, she was being treated for cancer in her glands, and then it re-occured and had gone to her lungs, she was being treated for lung cancer (unsuccessfully), but it was only the secondary, her primary apparently was hard to diagnose, she had ovarian cancer. If the primary had been found first time round, it would have been treated, and if it had, I’m pretty sure he said that it wouldn’t have gone to the glands or lungs.
Sometimes when I don’t feel so great I get bitter, and it’s directed a 2 GP’s. About 2 years before I was diagnosed, I had blood intwined with my stool (excuse me), I had managed to retrieve a stool and I took it to the doctor, she gave me the obvious exam, scolded me for bringing in the stool, I remember her standing there with her hands on hips saying “What am I going to do with that?” you can imagine how embarrassed I was, she sent me off saying it was probably a hemmaroid, by then I was double embarrassed, I could feel something inside me at that stage about the size of a golf ball. About 20 months later I went on a holiday to Russia (from Australia) I’m sure that being in the air brings any sickness out to open, I was sick all the way, and was sick for 1 day whilst there and sick on the way home.( I never got sick). When I got back, I went and saw another GP, same clinic, had a CT Scan, all she could focus on was a swollen cyst, which had been there for 8 years, she wouldn’t focus on the other white blob, which was bigger??? This GP was as dumb as the first, she gave me a pap smear, asked me to raise my pelvis cause she couldn’t get the spectulem over the big lump….DUH…..Still didn’t register. Had it been found then, about 2 months before my final diagnosis, it would not have reached my liver. It was pretty aggresive until I started chemo.
Unfortunately I can’t warn people to get a second opinion, because by the time you reach this website, it’s too late, the last thing you expect your doctor to tell you is that you have cancer, so you don’t investigate this far yet. I was certain that I had a twist in the bowel or something.
I bought two wrist bands yesterday because they were for bowel and cancer research, I just tossed them in the car. My daughter picked one up and read what was written on it. It said
“embarrassment can kill” How true.
It would be good if we could avoid that sniper, how appropriate was that statement, well said.
I had a CT Scan last Friday, 9th Sept. hope all is well, I hope that they’ve shrunk even more.
Love to All,
Trish