Since there was a thread that I saw sometime earlier where a man was answering questions for his last few hours of life since he was losing his battle with cancer.
First though, let me tell you my story. Or, more accurately, my mom's story.
December 14th, 2010, my mom was diagnosed with lung cancer. At 47, she has been smoking for around 30-35 years. While she did quit a few times, she was unable to stay off of cigarettes. We decided to do one treatment that was supposed to kill off the cancer that had grown in the bronchus. While the treatment worked, since it was close to the holidays, they let her come home. She was home for Christmas, which we all enjoyed. In early January, we started another treatment, which also worked well, but she started having some issues from that as far as pain and the like went. We were admitted into the hospital for a time, for what exactly, I don't recall.
After about a week and a half after being released from the hospital, she went in to schedule her radiation therapies. While doing an X-Ray, they found something odd, her lung wasn't reaching quite the area in the body where it was supposed to. They took her in to do a chest tube and found more cancer in the other lung. She was put on a ventilator, and we were told that she had to come off of the ventilator in under 72 hours or the chances of her ever coming off of it were slim. While that was scary, she came off of it un under 24 hours.
We proceeded with radiation and were killing the cancer in the lungs, doing much better than we had anticipated. We stopped some accelerated doses of radiation, and moved on to chemo two weeks later. She had an alleric reaction to the chemo, so we stopped that and changed the medicine for that for the next appointment the next week. In the time between the initial chemo and the second one, she started having difficulty swallowing. Eventually, she was throwing up every time she tried to swallow. When she went in for chemo the next day, the doctor saw how bad she looked and admitted her to the hospital to have the throat looked at and a tube put in the stomach so that she could get nutrients until the throat was better.
While they were looking down her throat, they found cancer. Not only that, they found something that the doctors call a fistula, which is basically a hole, connecting the throat to the bronchus. They were unable to put the tube in because they didn't want to catch the tumor and rip the throat. They brought her back to the room, and started making plans to put a stint in her throat, which would block the hole and allow her to eat and drink. They told us that this was risky and was likely to result in her being on the ventilator again, but the chances were relatively small, but we had to consider that a possibility.
The stint went in with no problems, and while she was recovering from that, she developed a clot in her arm. The doctors called for a sonogram, which showed the clot, so they called for scans of the brain. In the brain, they found a lesion. We were also told that she would be lucky to live to see the end of the year. She wasn't strong enough to continue with treatments, and even if she was, the treatments would only prolong the inevitable. The cancer was going to find a way to beat it.
They were already telling us that the cancer in the throat was right behind the area in her chest that was getting radiation, and grew despite it, so they said that it was pointless.
Now, 15 weeks after diagnosis, she has decided to stop treatment. We're going to manage her pain, and not do anymore. Her time left, is between two weeks and two months, and will likely not live to see her birthday in April.
Please, do not misunderstand my reasons for writing this. I just found out a few hours ago that she doesn't want to do any more treatments. Right now, I am sitting by her side with my dad as we try to figure out how she can get home and have some peace in her last days of life. I needed some sort of outlet for this. I know that despite a lot of the reputation of being misanthropic, I know that there are a great many of you that are decent people. I'm just happy that we can make her comfortable so that she doesn't have to suffer anymore. I know that I would never wish such a fate on anyone.
First though, let me tell you my story. Or, more accurately, my mom's story.
December 14th, 2010, my mom was diagnosed with lung cancer. At 47, she has been smoking for around 30-35 years. While she did quit a few times, she was unable to stay off of cigarettes. We decided to do one treatment that was supposed to kill off the cancer that had grown in the bronchus. While the treatment worked, since it was close to the holidays, they let her come home. She was home for Christmas, which we all enjoyed. In early January, we started another treatment, which also worked well, but she started having some issues from that as far as pain and the like went. We were admitted into the hospital for a time, for what exactly, I don't recall.
After about a week and a half after being released from the hospital, she went in to schedule her radiation therapies. While doing an X-Ray, they found something odd, her lung wasn't reaching quite the area in the body where it was supposed to. They took her in to do a chest tube and found more cancer in the other lung. She was put on a ventilator, and we were told that she had to come off of the ventilator in under 72 hours or the chances of her ever coming off of it were slim. While that was scary, she came off of it un under 24 hours.
We proceeded with radiation and were killing the cancer in the lungs, doing much better than we had anticipated. We stopped some accelerated doses of radiation, and moved on to chemo two weeks later. She had an alleric reaction to the chemo, so we stopped that and changed the medicine for that for the next appointment the next week. In the time between the initial chemo and the second one, she started having difficulty swallowing. Eventually, she was throwing up every time she tried to swallow. When she went in for chemo the next day, the doctor saw how bad she looked and admitted her to the hospital to have the throat looked at and a tube put in the stomach so that she could get nutrients until the throat was better.
While they were looking down her throat, they found cancer. Not only that, they found something that the doctors call a fistula, which is basically a hole, connecting the throat to the bronchus. They were unable to put the tube in because they didn't want to catch the tumor and rip the throat. They brought her back to the room, and started making plans to put a stint in her throat, which would block the hole and allow her to eat and drink. They told us that this was risky and was likely to result in her being on the ventilator again, but the chances were relatively small, but we had to consider that a possibility.
The stint went in with no problems, and while she was recovering from that, she developed a clot in her arm. The doctors called for a sonogram, which showed the clot, so they called for scans of the brain. In the brain, they found a lesion. We were also told that she would be lucky to live to see the end of the year. She wasn't strong enough to continue with treatments, and even if she was, the treatments would only prolong the inevitable. The cancer was going to find a way to beat it.
They were already telling us that the cancer in the throat was right behind the area in her chest that was getting radiation, and grew despite it, so they said that it was pointless.
Now, 15 weeks after diagnosis, she has decided to stop treatment. We're going to manage her pain, and not do anymore. Her time left, is between two weeks and two months, and will likely not live to see her birthday in April.
Please, do not misunderstand my reasons for writing this. I just found out a few hours ago that she doesn't want to do any more treatments. Right now, I am sitting by her side with my dad as we try to figure out how she can get home and have some peace in her last days of life. I needed some sort of outlet for this. I know that despite a lot of the reputation of being misanthropic, I know that there are a great many of you that are decent people. I'm just happy that we can make her comfortable so that she doesn't have to suffer anymore. I know that I would never wish such a fate on anyone.
