Hi,
My father in his 70's has recently been diagnosed with secondary liver cancer( adonoma carcinoma I think) and they have been unable to find the primary cancer. The liver cancer was disovered during an unrelated scan. At this stage is has been about 5 months since his diagnosis and there has been no treatment to date, he feels fine and is fit and active.
Has anyone here had any experience with this cancer and tell me what to expect?
My grandmother (73) too has this type of cancer. The source of her cancer was the lungs. It has also spread to her kidneys. She was diagnosed over 2 years ago, and immediatly went on chemo and even tried some experimental treatments. She did very well with those, but things took a turn for the worst about 6 months ago and those treatments stopped working. We have since found that she has these carcinoid type tumors in her heart as well (we found this during bypass surgery) The liver cancer has now "taken over", and we are dealing with the last stages of this diesese. I would encourage you to enjoy every minute you can with father and as treatments are suggested, try them they may give you more time. Our experience with this has been that it grows very slowly, but can change very rapidly. God bless you.
Last edited by mmcgarity77; 09-12-2008 at 07:40 AM.
My mother died in July this year. She had several different types of cancer over 28 years, however the last cancer that was detected was liver cancer, for which I believe there is little that can be done. As the previous poster said....enjoy the time you have together, make sure you say all the things in your heart you want to say, hug, hold hands, make memories........life is short, no matter how old our loved ones are. My mum was 90 when she died....but age means nothing when you love someone.
hugs.
__________________
This life is a journey, not the destination.
Thanks Phyls daughter, I'm very sorry about your Mother.
My Father is now on chemo and so far there has been no adverse side effects and his fitness and wellbeing is good, although it is only early days and we have no illusions about what the future may hold.
Dad finished his first round of chemo in Jan or Feb and they made him have a month off and after that month the scan showed rapid growth of the cancer. The doctor said he has 6 weeks to live if he did nothing and 6 months if he went to a stronger dose of chemo. Up until this point he was still quite active and mostly unaffected although he said he was surprised how quick he got tired when doing activities
He then started chemo again with a pump permanently attached to his arm. Almost straight away it made him sick and he ended up in hospital with fever like symptoms and ultimately the doctors said it was having no effect. He decided to stop chemo and make the best of what time he has left. This chemo has made him ill and he has been back to hospital again because his white cell count was very low.
He is now at home and deteriorating fast, although his pain appears to be manageable ( or he is not letting on about it) he is very restless and has days of confusion and loss of concentration and is quite weak, appetite comes and goes and he is looking very frail all of a sudden. He has a range of medication for morning to bedtime which includes Physeptone ,Sodium valproate,Dexamethasone Irbestan and Ordine Solution (Morphine solutions).
It's 12 months now since he was diagnosed and it was then considered an early diagnosis and we were all hopefull that treatment would be successful.
Hi,
I hope your father is doing the best he can. Sorry to you and your family. My Dad was just told that he has Lung Cancer that has spread to his liver. No Biopsy yet, so not sure what stage it is in. I am keeping hope that it is in the early stages. I have been looking at posts and none are good news.
My thoughts are with you and your father budman32.
Unfortunately my father passed away last (night June 7), peacefully at home in the company of his wife and children. I felt blessed to have been there to hold his hand and look him in the eyes as he slipped away. We were all so thankful that he passed away quickly. His health deteriorated so much in the last 3 weeks which caught me by surprise.
Looking back it was almost 13 months since he was diagnosed with liver cancer, we did hope to have him around a lot longer but is wasn't to be.
When my head clears up I will post a more detailed time line which may or may not be useful to other people in the same situation. We looked after him at home until the end and there was many lessons to be learned along the way which would have been useful for us to have known.
my husband 53, has stage 4 colon cancer spread to the liver,he was active for about 15 mon.now he is slowly getting sicker.but his is verey agresive,and no longer responding to cemo,good look and hang in there,.
