Our mother was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer in 2002. She is now having severe shoulder pains, crying often, tired, and is getting "everything" in order. She will not discuss any results of her monthly scans, etc. She stopped chemo months ago due to the side effects. I guess I am wondering could the shoulder pain have anything to do with her cancer?

Our mother was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer in 2002. She is now having severe shoulder pains, crying often, tired, and is getting "everything" in order. She will not discuss any results of her monthly scans, etc. She stopped chemo months ago due to the side effects. I guess I am wondering could the shoulder pain have anything to do with her cancer?

Epse, welcome to the Boards.

I'm so sorry to hear your news.

It sounds as if your mother's cancer is either (a) not responding to the chemo or (b) the chemo is too hard on her and she cannot continue on it. If she has battled Stage 4 since 2002, she has certainly come a long ways in her fight! It's really hard when she has chosen not to share any of this with you.

As for her shoulder pain, that could be a number of things -- bone mets, lung mets, or maybe just still side effects of the chemo.. Without her sharing the results of her scans, there's probably no use speculating.

However, she shouldn't be having to suffer and be in pain. If her chemo and treatment have been discontinued as being of no use, she should be at least on "palliative" care, including whatever pain meds she needs to be comfortable.

Sometimes a parent simply cannot talk to a child about such things because they cannot burden them with knowledge that they will not always be there. Perhaps you can try to talk to your mother and tell her it's alright to tell you, and that you want to be there with her in every way, even if the news is not good news.

Encourage her to get help from her oncologist for her pain. No matter what her prognosis, suffering like this should NOT be part of it. Some patients are too timid, or they just accept this level of pain as their due and don't ask for help.

Our best to you in this hard time..

Michelle