Thanks for sharing Elke. Since we live overseas far away from our father when he was diagnosed with cancer, we share our story and answer your questions at :

Breast cancer in liver

Feel free to ask more question!

Lots of hugs for you and your family.

My sister who lives in Germany was diagnosed in September 08 with stage 4 breast cancer which had already invaded both sides of her liver. They can not operate and it is a very fast and agressive spreading cancer.
She receives pain medication which makes her constipated and chemo (taxol) along with Herceptin. The later has caused some big allergic reactions.
The second time she received Herceptin she went into some kind of a shock the doctor said it was an allergic reaction. She turned ice cold could not breath and kind of passed out, and had to be given medication to come around. The next week it was the opposite, 2 minutes into the treatment she said she felt like burning up and she rolled her eyes and passed out. Lucky there was one more patient in the treatment room who alerted the doctor to check on her. It took them a while to get her out of it again. Again she was told it is an allergic reaction and next time she is getting something at the same time to prevent this.
She is very sick all the time, difficulty breathing, nausea and of course all other side effects apply.
My sister is trying to protect her family an 18 year old son, husband and our father by not telling them the whole status of her health problem. She asked the doctor not to tell them the whole truth and I am the only one who knows more details. She is trying very hard on the phone to play everything down. I think to make it easier on me to, or she might not know the truth herself to the full extend.
She does not want me to come over yet, until she feels better and stronger again. I live in Missouri, USA and it is not easy for me to visit that often either, but of course I would come right away and see her if she is okay with seeing me.

So I do not know if she knows the full extend of her cancer or if I am overreacting and that there is a chance she can live many more years.
I am afraid that something could happen very quickly while receiving her medication, and I did not see her again.

She is my only younger sister and just turned only 47 years old, I can and will not accept to loose her anytime soon.
I am very, very sad and have searced the internet up and down for hours to find something to give me hope for her. Most of the time I only read that if the cancer has metastases to the liver it is always fatal, in a matter of fact extremely fast going towards the end.

People at work tell me I should just go and visit her, regardless of her wishes to wait until later. If I would do this, her family would become very suspicious, because I just paid a visit in March 08 and normally come around every 2 or 3 years.
When our mother died in 2004 in her seventies of breast cancer I came in between and everybody knew why, except my mother. She died however while I was back in the states so I did not get to say good bye either.
Only people who had this in their family can understand the feelings of sadness and anger at the same time. I keep thinking about my poor sister all alone with her fear and pain, because she has nobody to talk too. She wants to protect all of us from pain, while she really needs moral support.
Does anyone know how long she will still be with us. Is there a chance of a miracle and she would recover again, that means the tumors on the liver would shrink at least. She was told that she has very fast growing tumors, but to my knowledge was not given a time, but the doctor said, she has to have hope.
Is this just to calm her down, is chemo even doing her any good at this time? Is she suffering even more, and it has no effect on significantly extend her remaining time? Would she die sooner wihout chemo or is it about the same. Does anybody know this.
Thanks for any information and hope you can give.
Elke

Thanks for sharing, our stories sounds so similar…

I share my grief after father’s passing away for about 2 years now in:

my dad is dead.

The day dad died I spent the first night alone.. it was probably one of the hardest nights of my life and being that it was a painful death and there was no one there but me and him when he died made it even harder. I’m still struggling with the pictures and movies playing in my head from those last moments.. When my dad died he took his secrets with him. Im just hoping things will get better soon.

Im sorry to hear what some of you have in front of you and all I feel I can say is to be strong - I know that’s hard when all your emotional energy just gets drained from you. But for those of us that get put in this situation, the will to stay strong comes from within

Again.. thanks for all the support..

Patrick.

Dear Lisa,

Read our cancer story answering your cancer story at :

Stage iv colon cancer

All our hugs for you.

I agree with you. Although I would love father to be next to me sane and sound,

I really didn’t see the point in him going to all the suffering in the last months of his life.

Then he is much better off where he is now, and it was nice to see that he had a smile on his face when he passed away.

I am very sorry of the death of your father. My mother too died of colon cancer metastsized to her liver. She was diagnosed in Dec 2004 and passed away om 27th May 2006 at the age of 60.
What makes me carry on everyday is as you say they are in a better place and not suffering anymore.

Take Care

With deepest Sympathy

Rosanne