Cancer treatment options

Lisa from Stage iv colon cancer asks all of us what alternative cancer treatment options you have experienced.

 

 

Here’s our story:

 

Once we knew father was diagnosed with metastatic liver cancer, I did a lot of cancer treatment research like:

 

• Hepatocellular Chemoembolization
   
• Introduction to alternative cancer treatments
   
• Colon cancer cure
   
• Laser treatment for liver cancer and RF ablation
   
• or the cures for cancer listed at Liver Cancer Survival Rate
   

 

Father’s specialist who diagnosed him with secondary liver cancer told me:

 

"Stop looking on the Internet for alternative treatments for cancer,
your father is dying."

 

This was an ice cold shower from a man being honest yet without any compassionate social skills.

 

But what he said was true:
 

• for all he knew and with the doctors team in his hospital, he didn’t have any normal nor other alternative cancer therapy to cure father from his cancer. The big dose of chemotherapy needed to attack the unknown primary, most likely would kill our weakened father as well.
   
• and what he said was much more accurate than the other liver specialist saying "we are on the good road..".

 

This resulted in myself only Googling for more alternatives when father was sleeping.

 

I also send out my brother and nephew to visit other hospitals and health centers trying to find out if they could offer anything new, different or better than what we had got so far to cure father.

 

But their answer was pretty grim: since our father had a secondary with unknown primary: as long as the primary couldn’t be treated, there was no urge to do anything for the liver. It would have been the same like cleaning a polluted river without first closing all the sewerage pipes that flow into the river. Replace sewerage with cancer, and you have a clear idea what’s happening to father’s liver.

 

The story would be totally different when they had found where the primary cancer was located.

 

One hospital specialized in quite a number of holistic cancer treatments added that because father had so many little tumors in his liver, radiofrequency ablation wasn’t an option either.

 

Lisa’s doctor is saying something different:

"I have no more options but I suggest that dad could possibly be a candidate at a research medical school".

 

Is this a more tactful way than our doctor? Our GP said:

"with normal medicine and normal efforts, there is no cure for your father’s cancer".

 

I suggest you contact the medical school and present your cancer story. If they are optimistic, only then you need to start making your father in favour of taking another chance.

 

Just keep in mind to evaluate the medical school in terms of credibility: are they looking for a ginny pig or are they genuine offering you an alternative treatment for cancer that goes beyond "normal medicine and normal efforts".

 

Palliative care or cancer treatment options

 

The choice you need to make is: do we keep on looking for a cure or do we accept their aren’t any cancer treatment options anymore.

 

Or simply put: do you “tag” your father a palliative patient in stead of a normal patient. We had to "tag" since it would make a real change in how the health insurance would intervene.

 

I opted for both: I accepted palliative care with in the back of my mind still trying to find alternative cancer treatment options (logically: when you don’t find a cure for cancer, you are still in palliative care). Yet I didn’t tell father not did I drag father from one hospital and specialist to the other.

 

The last time I went with father to the hospital was to talk to the oncologist.

 

Father didn’t feel like seeing the oncologist anyway, but our GP said there was an oral chemotherapy called Xeloda that was working positively with one of his colon cancer patients.

 

Positively meant that "Xeloda would be able to prolong father’s life for a few more months".

 

The oncologist added to that:

"it’s not because you take it orally, that it’s like taking Aspirine: Xeloda is still a chemotherapy with all the side-effects of a chemotherapy".

 

Father asked the oncologist: can you guarantee me that Xeloda will cure my cancer?

 

The answer of the oncologist was a clear "no guarantee for a cancer cure", so father didn’t feel like wasting more time in the hospital.

 

The abdominal pain comes and goes

 

Like in Lisa’s cancer story, father’s abdominal pain also came and went. But the overall picture was that the pain increased, so we had to increase his pain medication accordingly. What pain medication is your father on Lisa?

 

Some days are good, some days are not so good, but it general : what you had today will most likely be not that good tomorrow.

 

Lisa speaks about glossy eyes, I don’t know what you really want to say but we noticed that fathers eyes were more "wet" than normal. Also father’s expression became more and more as if his eyes where not looking at anything nor anyone. We didn’t notice any jaundice in his eyes though (well, I thought I sometimes did, but the GP said that father’s eyes were still ok).

 

I don’t recall father burping or having a gurgling sound in his stomach or intestines. We did experience father having a gurgling sound at night in his throat when he was breathing. Very scary as if he couldn’t breath and very loud as well. But the doctors and nurses said this was OK: "it’s more scary to listen to than it is for your father".

 

The night father passed away these sounds became less and less…

 

Eating became more and more difficult as there was only so little room in his abdomen left for food due to his swollen liver.

 

On top of that father felt nauseous and needed to vomit, although not much food came out or nothing at all. He already had this problem before he was diagnosed. We medicated that with an anti-nausea doctor’s prescribed drug.

 

Please answer Lisa’s questions about metastatic liver cancer

 

Thank you for taking the time out to respond to my post.

 

I kind of laughed when you talked about surfing the internet on “Quality of Life” which is something I had googled a few weeks ago. I had never heard that term before.

 

My father has not had abdominal pain in a couple of days. Which of course has helped me sit back and take a deep breath. He is becoming very week though. The abdominal pain seems to come and go.

 

He says his stomach always has a gurgling sound and he has been burping a lot??? Sound familiar to anyone? I haven’t really researched that one yet.

 

His eyes look kind of glossy & glazed.

 

During his last appointment the doctor had said that he “had no more options” but had suggested that dad could possibly be a candidate at a research medschool about 2 1/2 hours away. The doctor was not sure if that was an option or not. He said that it was not a decision that was his to make.

 

Has anyone else come across an alternative such as this?