The fight for my Mum's life

Dear Friends

I'm here on this forum on behalf of my Mum because she cannot

She had trouble eating for the better part of the early months of this year and she was diagnosed with gastric cancer in June and we were told that surgery was an option. Unfortunately, when the operation was performed, she was found to have locally advanced disease involving the whole antrum of the stomach anteriorly and extending posteriorly into the head of the pancreas and into the hepatic artery. There were also tumor like signs in the falciform ligament. She was therefore only done a gastrojejunostomy and adviced that she sees an oncologist once she got recuperated from the surgery. However, my Mum is very religious and she one day proclaimed that she had been healed and she even started eating lots of food. My family did not fight her as we thought she had enough on her plate for us to start making her life a mess. Well, to cut the long story short, 2 weeks ago she took a turn for the worse (some would say as expected). She started throwing up bile, she cannot pass stool and she cannot eat anything, so she is on an IV at home. I took her for a chest X-Ray, CT Scan and some blood work. Currently the CT Scan is yet but her chest X ray came back very OK. However, her blood work said that her CEA was 8.96 and her CA-19-9 was 6,065. I am waiting to go pick her CT results tomorrow. Is there any one out there who can associate with this

Thanks

Comments

  • JennySC
    JennySC Member Posts: 29

    Hi, Kariuki,

    So sorry! It must be hard for you to see your mom suffering. Praying for best CT scan tomorrow!

    After my husband's DX-stage IV, I have asked about CEA which is used by Onc as cancer marker. My husband's lowest level was 7 when he felt great. Most time his CEA is above 20, which may indicate the cancer spreading. So your mom's CEA is still good. I don't know much about CA-19-9. Hers seemed to be higher, but I have seen higher numbers. My husband had some similar problems: vomitting, couldn't eat and drink when the chemo was not effective. Hoping your mom can start chemos again!