Friend's mom has cancer - what to expect?
 

My next-door neighbor (and very good friend's) mom was diagnosed with liver cancer just before Christmas, and things don't sound really good:

1. It appears to be secondary liver cancer that came from somewhere else, but they can't find the original cancer. It's in the lymph nodes.

2. It's inoperable, although they're doing chemo in the hopes of shrinking the tumor to the point where it might be operable.

3. From what I've read in my online research, the 5-year survival rate for secondary liver cancer in this stage is about 7% :-/

Since any treatment seems to be just about prolonging her life and not curing the cancer, what can we expect in terms of her mom's physical state and reaction to the treatment and the progression of the cancer, and what are some things I can do to help? Are there foods that help with some of the treatment side-effects? Are there things we can do to make her more comfortable?

Chemo does terrible stuff to people. She's probably going to have trouble eating while she's undergoing it so anything you can get her to eat is good. Plus, the liver cancer will make it difficult for her to digest food later on, she might have to be fed intravenously toward the end.

Nutrition info:
http://www.cancure.org/Chemo_support.htm

She'll probably just get weaker and weaker from a combination of the chemo and the cancer progression. Any things she wanted to do in life she should get out of the way quickly, as she's likely to be too weak to do them later.

The biggest problem is getting them to eat. Many times they dont feel hungry, and cant keep it down. She will probably lose a lot of weight and if she is going to a very good Oncologist they will give her a sample pack of Boost shakes. These are high fat, high calorie and energy boosting shakes. If they don't give her some Boost and shes losing weight get her to try Boost shakes. Yes theyre expensive but check into her insurance, or medicaid or something to help her if she cant afford it. Theyre like slim fast meals in a can, but fatty lol. I dont think they taste awful, and Ive seen them do wonders on chemo patients when I worked in an oncology office.

Mostly support is what she will need. If she has anemia maybe her doctors will try procrit. www.procrit.com this is a drug that is supposed to help treat certain types of anemia and fatigue related to chemotherapy. There is also a support e-mail on there and lots of info. Checking out the American Cancer Society's website at www.acs.org they have a lot of information on treatment and support.

Everyone will react to chemo differently. You really can't tell how one person is going to react until they get the treatment, especially since there are so many different chemo drugs out there. A lot of people get the stomach symptoms described, but not everyone. Take my brother for example, he was diagnosed with cancer about 8 months ago, and the chemo has hardly bothered him at all. He was almost never nauseous and only a little tired. Of course, he was young healthy (other than this whole cancer thing) and in relatively good shape.

Anymore they have some pretty good drugs to control the nausea as well, which may help her as well. As yellow said above shakes like Boost (also Ensure i think is a goood one as well) can be good because they provide a lot of the vitamins and nutrients we need in a fairly easy to digest form. A lot of the chain drug stores (Wal Mart, Walgreens, etc) will offer generic versions of these that are pretty similar, albeit they may not taste quite as good.

Procrit is good for anemia, and if she starts having to weak of an immune system, there are some shots she can get for that as well that stimulate your bone marrow to make more white blood cells.

Ensure isnt as fatty.. but it helps and I dont know if it tastes better or not. They all taste alright to me..

but everyone reacts differently... so thats why I can only really list loss of appetite, loss of weight and nausea as the expected effects. It is also why I said IF she has chemo induced anemia they might try procrit, because it is a big IF.

Another thing is her age and the stage of her cancer, Im gathering that she isnt in the best of health to begin with and its going to be a heavy dose of chemo.. this might be hard for her or if she is in good shape like VitaminH said she could tolerate it well. Ive seen both extremes and everything in between happen. Hopefully things will just go smoothly, she will tolerate it well and everyone will come out better.

I hope things go well, be there for your friend and her mother. Support is what they will need most of all.

to tell you the truth, help her live happily rather then live sadly. If your mental state basically is one that appreciates what you have, your body reacts so. She will hurt herself if she is depressed and may actually speed up her mortality.

My friends mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer 13 years ago and was given 6 months to live. She didn't cry or do anything, she decided to live the best life she could for the next 6months and is still living that life 13 years later.

Konichiwaneko is absolutely correct

It's all about the patient's mental state. If they just sit around and cry and get sad, then it will only be worse for them and worse for everybody.

However, if they go out, have fun, and don't let anything get in their way, they will live a much happier and possibly longer life. I've seen several of my relatives go downhill fast because they weren't happy and optimistic. They gave up in every aspect and lost it all.

By all means, don't let this happen to your friend's mom.

Every patient react to chemo differently, I hope she is able to eat, sleep and go about regularly. It is a very difficult thing to deal with and I am sure in the end, she will become much stronger.

Is chemo even an option?

I have a friend who was recently given a ten year terminal diagnosis, and basically he has resolved to spend those ten years creating powerful memories. Even a year is a long time to make a statement with your life.

My suggestion to you is be available to listen, but remember that they (your neighbor and his mom) may not want to talk about it all the time. Sometimes, it's really nice to just pretend like you're normal.

lurkette,

i think you've already received some solid advice from the above, so i'll just back it up and say ditto. from my personal experience, i would suggest that if she is not already active in some sense, you might think about suggesting her to try a therapeutic yoga and ti-chi class, if she can find an experienced instructor in these methods. i have seen startling results in people's responses using these techniques, whether it is pure psycho-sematic or not. not only is the emotional state incredibly important, but learning techniques to focus the mind and sift out the drivel can be very useful for those in difficult situations.

Thanks for the advice, everyone. They're doing chemo, but the doctors are pretty noncommittal about it - it has a 20-40% chance of shrinking the tumor till it's operable, and the other day after about 2 weeks of chemo they asked her if she wanted to stop, the side effects are so unpleasant, and they don't seem optimistic (to say the least) about her prognosis.

Lesley, her daughter/my friend, is trying some homeopathic and herbal stuff to help her, but I don't know how she's doing, really. Lesley doesn't really seem to want to talk about it. I feel pretty helpless.