Hello,

I don't know what to expect. My 90 year old aunt has colon cancer with liver mets. She underwent colon surgery last summer but it came back and has spread. They think it may also be in her lungs. She has had three chemo (5FU w/ Leucovorin and Evastin) treatments. But these treatments are making her REALLY REALLY confused along with the typical chemo reactions.

She lives by herself but was staying with me until last week. Shortly after a chemo treatment - she was really loopy and her primary care Doc told me to take her to the ER. She was in the hospital for 3 days and is now at a nursing home/rehab facility. They want to try to "rehab" her and get her home. I cannot take care of her at my house because I own a company and am never at home in order to give her the care she needs.

I guess my question is - Should she go home? She has stge IV colon cancer and I think that all these moves are just going to make it worse. I would like to see her become a "long term" resident instead of a rehab patient. At least I will know then that she is being taken care of. What happens next? She feels okay besides the chemo reactions but she has decided to discontinue her treatments.

Does anyone have any advise - should I try to get her home where she'll be alone? I just don't know.

Hello,

I don't know what to expect. My 90 year old aunt has colon cancer with liver mets. She underwent colon surgery last summer but it came back and has spread. They think it may also be in her lungs. She has had three chemo (5FU w/ Leucovorin and Evastin) treatments. But these treatments are making her REALLY REALLY confused along with the typical chemo reactions.

She lives by herself but was staying with me until last week. Shortly after a chemo treatment - she was really loopy and her primary care Doc told me to take her to the ER. She was in the hospital for 3 days and is now at a nursing home/rehab facility. They want to try to "rehab" her and get her home. I cannot take care of her at my house because I own a company and am never at home in order to give her the care she needs.

I guess my question is - Should she go home? She has stge IV colon cancer and I think that all these moves are just going to make it worse. I would like to see her become a "long term" resident instead of a rehab patient. At least I will know then that she is being taken care of. What happens next? She feels okay besides the chemo reactions but she has decided to discontinue her treatments.

Does anyone have any advise - should I try to get her home where she'll be alone? I just don't know.

Im not a doctor, and have no basis to agree with you other than to say I absolutely do. I think for someone that age battling a disease no good can come of constantly changing their environment, moving them here and there and such. I would see about this possibility for her, I cant imagine shes comfortable with all of this moving around.

At 90, she has probably lived longer than 80 percent of us on this board are going to (hell Im praying I just make it to 75 right now!), whether afflicted with illness or not! I would say at this point, if I were her, I would just want serenity and peace wherever it may be, I wouldnt want to be tossed from place to place.

Nonetheless, wherever she goes she needs to have someone close by to take care of her, be it as a resident or family, no one wants to be alone even if they dont tell you or show it.

Thank you for your timely response. I don't know what your circumstances are - but your advise is GREATLY appreciated. I think I agree with you - but my independant aunt (never been married) may think differently. I wish you all the best. Thank you again....

Heidi

Hi there

Sorry to hear of your predicament. I was faced with a similar situation in 2004. My mum was diag in 2003 with stage 4 colon cancer with mets to liver. She tolerated colon resection and a couple of rounds of chemo until side effects were too bad for her. From about March 2004 to June 2004 the cancer started to take her away from us. She and the family were all always aware of what the outcome was going to be and we could talk fairly easily about this amongst ourselves. Of course, the only thing we did not know was when and also how her symptoms would progress and therefore the level of care she would need and for how long.

Mum was upfront with us in that she did not want us to care for her at home. She wanted to feel safe and secure in the hands of professionals and give us time to visit her and talk to her rather than use up our time with her caring for her.

For the last month of her life, she lived at a local nursing home which she was very familiar with as it was right next door to her church so her closest church friends could visit. She also had a couple of visits home during this time for a few days at a time so I did move in with her when this happened.

I think mum made the right decision to go to the home and for a lot of people it may be right too. You do need to talk it through honestly with each other and always with a practical hat on, not an emotional one. The decision needs to cater for you Aunt's needs when the time comes and its best to talk about it before she is too ill to want to talk about it.

Hope this helps
good luck
ktee

Hospice may be able to help. Some local hospices have areas set aside in hospitals & nursing homes - others (like in my area) have a free-standing "Hospice House".

Her oncologist can refer her, or you can contact Hospice directly and they can contact the oconcologist...
They are truly wonderful.
:angel:

I'm curious as well one of my mom's friends at work was just diagnosed with 4 different tumors at 26 years of age. He had one in his colon and liver, not sure about the other two. They suspect its metastisized stage 4 colon cancer. Main symptom he had was he had lost a tremendous amount of weight.