Mar 29 2008
Liver Cancer
Another Liver Cancer story we received in our call for "Do
you have a liver cancer story". Thanks Kaye for sharing Kim’s liver cancer story. All our love and hugs. Please leave a comment and show Kaye your support!
For those new in liver cancer, Kaye’s story just like father’s metastatic liver cancer story tells you:
- there is an invisible killer amongst us that even the medical world cannot pinpoint on time…
- lots of doctors ignore red flags that should point to further analyses and could point to an early detection of cancer (why we have all these medical facilities and people, when they are just under used???, don’t say it’s too expensive: nothing compares with the billions wasted in Iraq…)
For those that have a loved one with cancer in palliative care
… shocked and still in disbelief at the rapid decline and death of my beautiful soulmate…- … the palliative care nurses came to our home like angels in the night and without them my husband and I would not have been afforded the dignity and our wish for him to remain with us till the end …
- … some things you don’t tell to even your most beloved one …
Liver cancer prognosis
Some of you might say: I have heard liver cancer stories where the cancer patient still lives on for 2 years after being diagnosed with liver cancer.
This is true, but most likely because the liver cancer was diagnosed in its very early stage.
In Kim’s story below they did notice "red spots" 18 months ago…
Symptoms of liver cancer
In Kim’s story we read some extra symptoms we never noticed with father’s metastatic liver cancer… We also learned from mother that father once told her "he had something on his mind he couldn’t tell her…".
Both:
- recognizing symptoms early and
- talking about
can let your life turn into another direction…
BUT:
why is there no talk about cancer prevention???
We are still looking forward for any politician who puts cancer prevention on the agenda…
Or in other words: who puts a healthy lifestyle on top of the agenda…
Better be safe than sorry is extremely true when it comes to cancer…
Kim’s liver cancer story
My husband, aged 49, died of liver cancer on the 5 March 2008.
He went for a employment medical in mid February2008 and the doctor noticed some red spots on his upper body. (other doctors had ignored this earlier) These had been around for about 18 months and we had put them down to burst blood capillaries that his dad has too.
The doctor felt his liver and said it was enlarged and referred him for an ultrasound & blood test
The results we received on the week preceding the 18th Feb were good news in that the diagnosis was benign growths and he had Hep C. (My husband was an ambulance office early in his career & this may have been the point of infection)
His concern was for me however & I tested negative for Hep C on the 19th and the doctor referred my husband to a clinic to treat his Hep C.
At the referred clinic appointment on the 21 Feb the doctor said my husband needed urgent blood test and cT scan. The bloods were taken that afternoon and the CT scan was performed the next day on the 22nd Feb.
My husband went into the scan appearing and feeling well and the moment he came out he complained of a sore shoulder which he thought was from laying in the machine with his arms above his head.
By that night he was in extreme pain and by the 23 Feb afternoon I took him to the local hospital emergency to get some relief.
The pain did not subside and on the 24 Feb he started to hiccup and did not stop. We again went to the local hospital emergency as the hiccups were interfering with his breathing and he was becoming very exhausted.
More pain relief coupled with valium were prescribed to relax his diaphragm. My husband was not to happy to be drugged so much and I was becoming increasingly concerned about him.
On the 25th February (Monday morning) I rang the clinic and pleaded with them to see my husband as I KNEW there was something really wrong and his face was very sick looking.
We were advised to come through the clinic’s hospital emergency and after waiting a number of hours (while my husband continued to hiccup) a registrar from the clinic came to see him. She said that the hiccup and shoulder pain were part and parcel of the “advanced aggressive liver cancer” that my husband had.
We were flabbergasted/stunned/shocked/crying and said that this was the first we had heard of CANCER . The registrar explained that there was no available treatment and requested that we keep the appointment we were meant to get the ct results at for the following Thursday (28th February) to discuss palliative care.
We returned home and Kim and I decided not to tell anyone in the near future to let ourselves digest the prospects.
That night I googled liver cancer + hiccups and some site referred to this symptom as the ‘final stages’. I shut the computer down and didn’t tell my husband this.
In the meantime the shoulder pain and the hiccups continued into the 27th and by lunchtime the drugs prescribed over the weekend by the emergency doctors at our visits rendered my husband bombed out and he stopped breathing.
I called his GP in a mad panic and shook him to life and called an ambulance.
I called all our kids and my husbands family. we became inundated with visitors.
The doctors asked if my husband wanted to stay in hospital and all we wanted to do was get home which we did.
We went along to the scheduled Thursday appointment at the clinic and the doctor told us my husband had about 2 months to live. We cried all the way home in the car.
Thursday night and the pain increased and I got on the phone to palliative services in desperation on the 29th and with the help of the clinic urging them to come they visited us at home that day.
The nurse took one look at my husband …organised better meds for pain relief and told us she thought he had a week or 2 left at best.
A morphine pump was fitted to Kim on Saturday the 1st March.
He was given steroids which lifted him on the 2nd and 3rd.
On the evening of the 4th after much love amongst us all and the kids we went to bed and he started to die before my eyes.
He died on the 5th at around 10.45 in the morning.
I am shocked and still in disbelief at the rapid decline and death of my beautiful soulmate.
I believe the contrast that my husband drank for the CT scan blew his cancer and symptoms up and hastened his death. Only consolation is that this may have shortened the time he was in pain.
On reflection symptoms of lethargy were around about 18 months beforehand that we put down to his dislike of his job ( which he changed and worked hard at his new job)
He also went thru bout of itching about 18 months prior to his death.
The palliative care nurses came to our home like angels in the night and without them my husband and I would not have been afforded the dignity and our wish for him to remain with us till the end.
Do you have a liver cancer story? Leave a comment and share your cancer story with us: it’s a relief to know that other people have lived the same ordeal and that don’t have any judgments about the things you did and didn’t do…
