Diapers, heartbreaking, suffering, pain, confusion, fluid accumulation … All but "quality" of life. Be warned: this is a sad and dirty secondary liver cancer story…
Doctors wont tell you how utterly disgusting dying from metastatic liver cancer can be. Diapers, heartbreaking, suffering, pain, confusion … : our father experienced these secondary cancer side effects as well as Billy did.
Dying from metastatic liver cancer:
- doesn’t look as heroic as surviving cancer, nor as any movie tries to depict
- is much more difficult than what the doctors say: "keep the pain medication at bay"
Dying from metastatic liver cancer means that:
your next day will be less as it was today.
Less communication, less orientation, less fun, less appetite…
"Less anything human"
Tha’s how father described it after he was diagnosed with metastatic liver cancer.
And diapers aren’t even the worst, because each parent knows how to change diapers. All the other end stage symptoms you most likely will experience hands on for the very first time.
Cancer treatments
Sadly but true, there are no real cancer treatments when you are in palliative care.
So called treatments for liver cancer in the end stage are aimed to:
- reduce the pain with pain medication and
- counter the side effect of pain medication: constipation
Just imagine:
- your liver is growing because your cancer is growing,
- there is less space in your belly and
- then your stools also keep inside your belly…
This is the hard reality, unlike the term "quality of life" used by the doctors, quality is surely a misleading word.
The hardest part starts when the brain starts messing up the cancer patient.
And it gets even worse:
When communication with words starts to fail.
We just have no words to describe this, so read Billy’s last days with metastatic liver cancer to get an idea.
For Kistan2: we have seen similar eyes like Kistan2 describes of Billy’s last moment. We feel that Billy just like our father was communicating that:
- he was ready to go,
- he loves us all…
but he just didn’t manage
to put that in words you could hear
Billy’s end stage metastatic liver cancer story
Billy’s wife Kistan2 left her cancer stories at :
- Billy got diagnosed in February 2008 with metastatic liver cancer: Do you have a liver cancer story
- Metastatic liver cancer end symptoms
- Introduction to alternative cancer treatments
Well, this is Kistan2. I just came back into this site after being away for a while. My husband eventually succumbed to his liver cancer – he lived a little over 2 months after he was first diagnosed which was a month more than what his prognosis was.
I watched this brave man die before my eyes in our bedroom and there wasn’t anything I could do for him except to be with him in his last moments.
The look he gave me just before he passed will stay with me for the rest of my life.
I’m not sure whether he was looking at me and saying with his eyes why I wasn’t helping him or whether he knew it was time and was saying goodbye.
I keep replaying that moment in my mind over and over. Although the kids and I miss him terribly we are relieved that he is no longer suffering.
Seeing a loved one suffer from liver cancer was horrible and he did suffer.
I just want to let everyone know what an incredible person he was – we miss you so much Billy!
Yes – one of the things my husband enjoyed in life was his food.
Once the cancer took over his enjoyment was severely diminished as he could no longer tolerate the after-effects of eating.
He was plagued with major gas and stomach pain. After every meal he would retreat to the bedroom and wait for the gas & pain that eventually came.
As for the confusion – as Billy reached the last weeks of his life, he became so loopy. And this was from a man who would pore over things in a methodical and logical way.
It was heartbreaking to see his mind become muddled and he would repeat things over and over again. I tried to break into his confused state of mind by trying to get him to focus but he would just keep saying things over and over again.
I think his pain medication contributed to his poor mental state too.
The hardest part of this all was that my husband eventually had to use diapers because of his erratic bowel movements.
Towards the end, I would help him to the bathroom, wait while he struggled to move his bowels and then help him put another diaper back on.
He also had ascites (fluid in the abdomen) which caused him the shakes and tremors. All in all, it was not pleasant for him.
Thanks Kistan2 to "say it like it is". All our love and hugs to you and your family!
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