Hey!

Some time has past since my last post to this topic about my mother. She is still alive, but how long, nobody knows.

The problem is still in her spine, the tumor is there and there is nothing we and the doctors can do. Surgery is not an option because of the severe death/paralysing danger. There are some symtoms of paralysis to come (shoulders, hip, knees etc are in pain and feel studdered)

The biggest news is the medication that she was assigned 4 months ago. She's one of the first here in Finland to be treated with Sutent. The 30 day set is pretty expensive, 3300€ = 5000$, luckily we don't have to pay more than 1000€ once (after that everything is for free, government pays)

The mental status of my mother has decreased for the past few months, all tough the doctors have said, that Sutent will probably (if it works) make her life easier, my mother thinks that it will be her saviour. We see now that the Sutent has failed to work, to be honest she is in the worst shape ever (however I cannot blaim Sutent, the drug itself, even the doctors cannot say, we only know that it has not helped.)

So what has happened. My mother has had difficulties with eating and drinking water for these past months. All of this happens after th 2nd weel of the Sutent cure. Everything is quite fine, if we keep watching her eating and drinking. We have to feed her and force her to drink water. Usually after the 2nd week of Sutent the problems start to show up, mouth dry, mouth bleeding etc. After that comes that she cannot eat and drink. Then comes the first vomiting stage, the it gets more severe etc

She has now dehydrated severely once a monthresulting serious vomiting and hospital care. She cannot even walk or stand up from the bed in a week when the dehydration/vomiting comes. Her weight usually raises +4kg while in an IV natrium/hydration in a hospital. All of this has happened after eating Sutent for 3 weeks.

She has severe stomach acid problems, the stuff that they give also into vains in the hospital (stomach shield or recurring stuff) cannot be given more than spesific amount a day, so after that she has couple of hours when she does not have any stomach pain. This is also after three weeks of eating Sutent.

So, we, the close ones don't know what to do. All we can do is celebrate all the good days. We've done so much and it feels like nothing, we, as a family moved 300 miles up north just to support my mother and Im living in hotels for the week to be able to work...

My mother is 52 years old, Im 28 TODAY. Mom looks older than her mother, my grand mother, it is just horrible...

Cheers all to you guys, keep up the faith, love is the greatest thing you can have and to practice when it comes to cancer and other situation/illnesses.


Medication of my mother per day:

3 x 60mg Oxycontin
1 x 10 mg OxyNorm (when needed)
3 x Opamox 30mg (mental, contemporary)
1 x Syfis (stomach protection)
2 x blood pressure (Sutent raises the blood pressure)
1 x Sutent 50mg (30 days in a row, then 2 weeks off, now 3rd cure ongoing but stopped with bad results)

I can't even remember all...

Jussi from Finland