Intro and questions...

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-17-2008
Intro and questions...
1
Wed, 09-17-2008 - 10:06pm

Hi everyone. My mom's in her late 50s. She was diagnosed in Jan 07 with CUP. She's not really communicative about her condition, so I really don't know much. This is what I do know....


She had several lymph nodes removed, went through chemo (they were treating it as breast cancer though they have still not identified where or what kind the original cancer was). They saw something suspicious in the breast, and did a radical masectomy. No cancer in the breast.


They wanted to "go for the cure" so they gave her the lifetime amount of radiation. It didn't work.


Oral chemo didn't work.


This chemo she's on now isn't working. Meanwhile, the cancer has spread to the lymphatic portion of her skin (which I found out about this summer) and I found out last night (from my sister, who heard from my brother, who heard from my step-dad) that it is now in her lungs. No tumors, just "freckles" I don't even know what that means, but it doesn't sound good.


She went without chemo for two months to get her heart problem under control. She recently had an ablation, and afterwards ended up in the hospital for heart failure. They actually stopped her heart in order to restart it.


My husband's mom died from cancer years ago, and I think it just hurts him too much to talk about it, and I really don't have anyone to talk to about this. As evidenced above, my family doesn't communicate well. *sigh*


The "prognosis" that I've heard is out of date. I have no idea what to expect. I am so confused. I talked to mom several times today. She did not mention the spread of the cancer, though we did talk about the heart related hospital stay (which she neglected to tell me about)....she simply said that she'd been in the hospital and she missed my sister's birthday.


I don't want to force her to communicate. I don't want to make it unpleasant. But I would like to know what's going on. I just don't know what to do or where to go or who to talk to.


Our first conversation today ended with "Don't worry about me. I'm either up, or I'm down. I'm up right now. When I'm down, I go to the hospital and they fix me" which is total hookey because she'd just spent the last half hour giving me detailed descriptions of what sounds to me like substandard care.


Can anybody point me in the right direction?! Otherwise I'm headed off to therapy. This is tough. (and trust me, I know tough)


If you made it through all this, thanks.


 


k


 


 


 

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-04-2005
Thu, 09-18-2008 - 11:47am

Chances are, your mom wants to protect you.


Photobucket