Quality of Life

Your family's doubt toward the 'wait & see' attitude tells me that you guys want to act on this diagnosis. Given that your dad is so physically active and has a great attitude, I would put on the boxing gloves and sucker-punch this thing. It never hurts to get a second (or 3rd) opinion. Don't let the doctors sugar-coat this because of your dad's age. 83 'ain't so old' if he's still physically active and feeling good otherwise. I assume he has no other major health issues that would prevent active treatment of the cancer......My husband is considerably younger (55), but has had 25 rads/6 wks oral chemo, surgery and now 6 mo. of drip chemo. He already had serious heart damage (+ bypass history), but we are doing okay. The Cancer Ctr where we receive treatment is full of 70-80+ ages who are actively getting treatment. Best wishes, your dad is lucky to have you as an advocate.
PeppD

Hi there. I am so happy that your dad has such a healthy lifestyle. I am sure that it will help him to bounce back from surgery very quickly. As for the wait and see, I would get at least a second opinion and then think about all of the options: chemo, a strong nutritional plan - or both. This has to be a shock to everyone in your family. I am sure, though, that you can settle on really positive approach. All the best to you and your family - Maura

AuthorUnknown said:

It does not make any sense to me why they performed the laparoscopic surgery on 1 area without waiting the result from other 3 and then proceeding to remove them all at the same time?

I would not like wait and see attitude. What is to wait for? Until they would get bigger? If they confirmed that those 3 spots are cancerous why would they not remove them as soon as possible? I would move in this direction.

Best wishes for your father. And please do let us know what happens next.

Hi, I'm RazlDazl's sister. They had discovered the colon cancer as a result of a colonoscopy, and the laparoscopic surgery was to resect the colon. During that procedure, they sampled lymph cells and subsequently found cancer there. Now the question is how to handle the lymphatic cancer. Thanks for your concern.

novastorm said:

Hi, I'm RazlDazl's sister. They had discovered the colon cancer as a result of a colonoscopy, and the laparoscopic surgery was to resect the colon. During that procedure, they sampled lymph cells and subsequently found cancer there. Now the question is how to handle the lymphatic cancer. Thanks for your concern.

Hi,
If they removed everything they could remove during the surgery, then the question is whether to proceed with the chemotherapy. If there is still something to remove, I would do that first.

As far as chemotherapy and quality of life is conserned: I am a caretaker of my mother 68 years old who has alzimeirs type dimentia and who was diagnosed with colon cancer in february of this year. I am my mother's conservator which means that I make all decisions for her.

After the surgery because the cancer was stage IIB the oncologist recommended the chemotherapy in the form of pill Xeloda. Many people on this board took it without major life-threatening problems. Common side effects that people had were nausea, mouth sores, sensitivity to cold, fatigue, etc.

In the case of my mother it went really bad. Her liver enzymes were elevated right away and we had to stop taking this drug after each round. Then she developed very severe case of pneumonia and almost died from it. As the result of pneumonia there was low blood pressure in the start of the disease which affected her kidneys. The treating physician in the hospital explained to me that chemotherapy jeopardises the immune system and it does not fight the infection. That is why she got the pneumonia. My mother is recovering now but whe was literally on verge of dying from the pneumonia because of chemotherapy. So, of course, my decision was to not continue with chemotherapy any more. In my mind - for mother it is not worth it.

I think that your father is right to take things realistically. He may or may not take chemotherapy well. It may or may not cure the problem. His quality of life may or may not be jeopardized. I think that he needs to know all pluses and minuses and then he needs to make a decision whether he is willing to go through suffering via chemotherapy with the purpose of saving his life. But then again, cancer can come back even with the chemotherapy, so the question is: is the chemotherapy worth the effort? This is only your father can answer. Luckily he is in his sound mind and can make his decision.

I know it is difficult for you to stand by and wait and watch. But I would get all information first. The option to try it and then stop if it does not work is always there, but you could be taking a risk like I did and I am lucky enough that my mother did not die from pneumonia. On the other hand the risk is if the chemotherapy not given. So, it is 2 sides coin....

Another issue to keep in mind is: how is his health otherwise? Does he have any other problems that may threathen his life? What is his life expectancy otherwise? I think you need to take this into consideration if chemotherapy is worth the effort.

Please e-mail me if you want more information or just want to talk.

Best wishes for your father and your family and May God bless and help everyone in your family.

Best Regards, Eleonora

Ahoy, Raz & Nova -

There is a lot of great advice here regarding both standard chemo regimes and naturopathic regimes. All of it is right on the mark in my opinion. I just wanted to add the mantra that old timers here have heard dozens of times before from me:

Your dad's doctors are his employees. They are being paid to advise him. If he doesn't like their advice, seek another advisor. You guys don't work for them.

Otherwise, nova - the cancer in the lymph nodes is colon cancer still. The problem with it being detected in the lymph nodes is that the cancer can use the lymphatic system as a sort of subway system to move around the body and find other places to set up shop. It's not actually lymphatic cancer.

Your dad is very lucky to have you both looking out for his well-being so well. My hat's off to you.


Cheers

- SpongeBob

I was a healthy 46 yo when I had chemo, radiation, surgery and more chemo. It was awful and I was sooooo sick. I cannot imagine having this if I was in my eighties. That is just my opinion.

Maureen

I would definitely get a second opinion at a major cancer center.

Maureen

jsabol said:

Hi RazlDazl and sis,
Just to confuse the picture, I thought I would weigh in with my dad's experience. He was diagnosed with advanced stage III at age 80; he had a nearly occluding tumor (the scope couldn't get through during his emergency work-up, as well as an encircling tumor). He lost much of his colon during his initial surgery and had 12 positive nodes! So, as you can see, his clinical picture was more severe than your dad's. That said, he and his docs decided to go with chemo, influenced in part by my dad's experience of his own mother's death from "stomach" cancer. He wanted to try to lick this thing. He had what was then (7 years ago) first line treatment (5FU and leuco), weekly infusions for 1 year. He tolerated them EXTREMELY well, far better than I did when I had the same treatment 3 years ago! And had very little problem with his new short colon. He walked to the senior center, over a mile each way, 3 times a week, where he volunteered with the meals on wheels crew and was in charge of bingo. He continued his vegetable garden in his free time!
He did have a major recurrance 2 years out of treatment; whether the initial chemo helped to keep the beast at bay, we will never know. His mets was extensive and beyond treatment at that point.
My colon cancer was one - 1 cm polyp with 1 positive node, diagnosed on my baseline colonoscopy. Given the aggressiveness with which my dad's cancer spread, I clearly planned to have chemo. I did have 6 months of chemo, and am now 2 years out of treatment and keeping my fingers crossed. At 53, I found the fatigue to be tough as time went on, and I did not have any of the newer drugs. BTW,hope you and sis are planning your own colonoscopies at least at age 50!
Best of luck to you and dad with this decision: he's lucky to have such caring kids. Judy

I guess the question for us right now is :What is really going on? Is this really colon cancer that spread to his lymph nodes, or lymphatic cancer that spread to his colon, or a cancer from some other area that spread to both? The colon cancer was so small that they had to dye stain the cells to locate them. I guess we'll have to wait til we get more info from the oncologist once Dad's recovered from this surgery.
Thanks to everyone for their input!