colonoscopy and endoscopy gets done for the 1st time tommorrow morning...scared

p.white
p.white Member Posts: 6
in Stomach Cancer #1
my dad is having an enoscopy and colonoscopy tommorrow morning...scared of what they'll find...been six months waiting since he first vomited blood and they'd suspected him a stomach or colon cancer sufferer, and tommorrow's the day.
i made up that liquid drink Fleet that he has to drink to induce diahorrea so they can see his colon clearly..not looking forward to seeing him in such discomfort...was happy living in ignorance of this suspected cancer but i know that the sooner they sight it the better. it seems everyone on this sight have already had surgery and chemo and what not and that no1s really interested in reading about my dads potentintal diagnosis.

Comments

  • Faithful_Angel
    Faithful_Angel Member Posts: 86
    #2
    Hugs
    We've all been there unfortunately...and you will be surprised by the outpouring of support you will get. Just remember to take it a day at a time. The tests and waiting are extremely scary. But with time you will see how many people will take you under thier wing to help you through this time. My dad was diagnosed in 2009 I know what those tests mean. The sooner your dad is diagnosed the sooner the treatment can start and the better outcome you can look forward to.

    Know we are here for you. When you need us in any capacity that you need us. Hope you have a great support system in place..

    Hugs and love,
    Valerie from Kentucky
  • savawolf
    savawolf Member Posts: 9
    #3
    I wish you the best for
    I wish you the best for tomorrow's visit. Hopefully they will not find the dreaded "c" word. My 47 year old sister was diagnosed about 3 weeks ago with stage 4. Her only symptoms were occasional heart burn and feeling fuller after small meals for the last year or two. What sent her to the hospital, and hence the diagnosis, is she had pains in her legs that turned out to be blood clots. She was treated for the blood clots and sent home. She returned to the hospital a week later with severe back pain. The PET scan showed a mass in the stomach, and a biopsy revealed the cancer. Her diagnosis is not good, but she is willing to fight.I pray for you and your family and that you receive good news tomorrow. My sister has been determined to be inoperable, so not much they can do. I feel your pain and wish the very best.
  • zukiness
    zukiness Member Posts: 4
    #4
    P. White
    Please don't feel as if nobody cares about your situation. I just joined this site a couple days ago and no one has responded to my posts either, but I don't believe it's because of apathy. We are all just going through our own personal journeys with this horrible disease. But please, please continue sharing your story, update as often as you'd like and if your father is unfortunately diagnosed, then maybe we can establish a relationship where we can all help and comfort each other. I know that by just typing the words of what I'm dealing with, it's a small form of therapy. I don't have to keep it bottled up inside, I don't have to say the same things over and over to my husband ( even though he is more than willing to hear me repeat myself a million times ) I guess what I'm trying to tell you, bottom line, we are all here because of the same horrible reason. Stomach cancer has affected our lives, either it's in our bodies, or it's invaded the precious body of someone we love. P. White, you and your father will be in my prayers. Please come back and let us know what happens.

    I'm copy/pasting my first post ( from Monday, June 12, 2011 ) below :

    My 32y/o sister was diagnosed 2 weeks ago with stage 4 stomach cancer, mets to the lymph nodes. She had been admitted to a hospital 6 weeks ago with symptoms of pancreatitis and had her gall bladder removed. After release from the hospital, she was still miserable, vomiting and in extreme pain. Ultrasound, mri, ct scan and colonoscopy found nothing. It was the endoscope that found a large tumor growing on the left side. It is pushing into her lungs and back, causing unbearable pain. She cannot keep down 95% of liquids or foods, but the size of the tumor makes her appear like she's very well fed. She has no history of smoking, drinking or drug use. She has 2 young sons and a very supportive, loving and overwhelmed husband. She saw the oncologist yesterday and he wants to run additional scans and tests before starting chemo. She is scheduled to have a port put into her chest and chemo treatments started within 2 weeks. We live 750 miles apart, and I have my own medical problems so it's proving to be difficult to be with her as much as I feel I need to. My 2 children and I just got drove home yesterday from being there for 5 days. I'm going thru the emotions of shock, anger, sadness, denial.... in such vicious cycles.
    I guess I just wanted to jump on here after reading what everyone else was going thru and get acquainted.
    My baby sister is just physically and emotionally broken and seeing her hooked up to oxygen and in so much pain was unbearable. It doesn't look good, statistically, but I can see from some of the above posts that this evil disease is treatable and beatable. I just pray that my sis has some fight left in her. It all happened so suddenly and the diagnosis was completely unexpected as she never has had anything more serious that strep throat in her entire life.
    Thank you for reading my story. I don't have a lot of details but will update and check back on here regularly. I pray that everyone is feeling okay and experiencing miracles in their lives.
  • have2believe
    have2believe Member Posts: 134
    #5
    zukiness said:

    P. White
    Please don't feel as if nobody cares about your situation. I just joined this site a couple days ago and no one has responded to my posts either, but I don't believe it's because of apathy. We are all just going through our own personal journeys with this horrible disease. But please, please continue sharing your story, update as often as you'd like and if your father is unfortunately diagnosed, then maybe we can establish a relationship where we can all help and comfort each other. I know that by just typing the words of what I'm dealing with, it's a small form of therapy. I don't have to keep it bottled up inside, I don't have to say the same things over and over to my husband ( even though he is more than willing to hear me repeat myself a million times ) I guess what I'm trying to tell you, bottom line, we are all here because of the same horrible reason. Stomach cancer has affected our lives, either it's in our bodies, or it's invaded the precious body of someone we love. P. White, you and your father will be in my prayers. Please come back and let us know what happens.

    I'm copy/pasting my first post ( from Monday, June 12, 2011 ) below :

    My 32y/o sister was diagnosed 2 weeks ago with stage 4 stomach cancer, mets to the lymph nodes. She had been admitted to a hospital 6 weeks ago with symptoms of pancreatitis and had her gall bladder removed. After release from the hospital, she was still miserable, vomiting and in extreme pain. Ultrasound, mri, ct scan and colonoscopy found nothing. It was the endoscope that found a large tumor growing on the left side. It is pushing into her lungs and back, causing unbearable pain. She cannot keep down 95% of liquids or foods, but the size of the tumor makes her appear like she's very well fed. She has no history of smoking, drinking or drug use. She has 2 young sons and a very supportive, loving and overwhelmed husband. She saw the oncologist yesterday and he wants to run additional scans and tests before starting chemo. She is scheduled to have a port put into her chest and chemo treatments started within 2 weeks. We live 750 miles apart, and I have my own medical problems so it's proving to be difficult to be with her as much as I feel I need to. My 2 children and I just got drove home yesterday from being there for 5 days. I'm going thru the emotions of shock, anger, sadness, denial.... in such vicious cycles.
    I guess I just wanted to jump on here after reading what everyone else was going thru and get acquainted.
    My baby sister is just physically and emotionally broken and seeing her hooked up to oxygen and in so much pain was unbearable. It doesn't look good, statistically, but I can see from some of the above posts that this evil disease is treatable and beatable. I just pray that my sis has some fight left in her. It all happened so suddenly and the diagnosis was completely unexpected as she never has had anything more serious that strep throat in her entire life.
    Thank you for reading my story. I don't have a lot of details but will update and check back on here regularly. I pray that everyone is feeling okay and experiencing miracles in their lives.

    hoping for good news
    My best wishes for a good visit with the dr, pwhite. I check this site as well as cancercompass.com's stomach cancer section. We're all going through various experiences dealing with this disease and I try to offer what I can and I've been through, if it offers any help. Sometimes I don't respond because I don't have an answer to some questions, but my thoughts are always with those dealing with cancer and other life-altering situations. My best wishes to you.
  • Faithful_Angel
    Faithful_Angel Member Posts: 86
    #6
    zukiness said:

    P. White
    Please don't feel as if nobody cares about your situation. I just joined this site a couple days ago and no one has responded to my posts either, but I don't believe it's because of apathy. We are all just going through our own personal journeys with this horrible disease. But please, please continue sharing your story, update as often as you'd like and if your father is unfortunately diagnosed, then maybe we can establish a relationship where we can all help and comfort each other. I know that by just typing the words of what I'm dealing with, it's a small form of therapy. I don't have to keep it bottled up inside, I don't have to say the same things over and over to my husband ( even though he is more than willing to hear me repeat myself a million times ) I guess what I'm trying to tell you, bottom line, we are all here because of the same horrible reason. Stomach cancer has affected our lives, either it's in our bodies, or it's invaded the precious body of someone we love. P. White, you and your father will be in my prayers. Please come back and let us know what happens.

    I'm copy/pasting my first post ( from Monday, June 12, 2011 ) below :

    My 32y/o sister was diagnosed 2 weeks ago with stage 4 stomach cancer, mets to the lymph nodes. She had been admitted to a hospital 6 weeks ago with symptoms of pancreatitis and had her gall bladder removed. After release from the hospital, she was still miserable, vomiting and in extreme pain. Ultrasound, mri, ct scan and colonoscopy found nothing. It was the endoscope that found a large tumor growing on the left side. It is pushing into her lungs and back, causing unbearable pain. She cannot keep down 95% of liquids or foods, but the size of the tumor makes her appear like she's very well fed. She has no history of smoking, drinking or drug use. She has 2 young sons and a very supportive, loving and overwhelmed husband. She saw the oncologist yesterday and he wants to run additional scans and tests before starting chemo. She is scheduled to have a port put into her chest and chemo treatments started within 2 weeks. We live 750 miles apart, and I have my own medical problems so it's proving to be difficult to be with her as much as I feel I need to. My 2 children and I just got drove home yesterday from being there for 5 days. I'm going thru the emotions of shock, anger, sadness, denial.... in such vicious cycles.
    I guess I just wanted to jump on here after reading what everyone else was going thru and get acquainted.
    My baby sister is just physically and emotionally broken and seeing her hooked up to oxygen and in so much pain was unbearable. It doesn't look good, statistically, but I can see from some of the above posts that this evil disease is treatable and beatable. I just pray that my sis has some fight left in her. It all happened so suddenly and the diagnosis was completely unexpected as she never has had anything more serious that strep throat in her entire life.
    Thank you for reading my story. I don't have a lot of details but will update and check back on here regularly. I pray that everyone is feeling okay and experiencing miracles in their lives.

    Welcome
    First of all to both of you welcome to a club none of us ever wanted to be in. Im the caregiver *34 yrs old* to my father who is only 57 he's been diagnosed with stage IV stomach cancer...at the junction of the stomach and esophagus so he crosses over to the symptoms of esophagus cancer too... He was diagnosed in feb 2009 after being admitted to the hospital with leg pain....*came to find out he had a blood clot in his left calf. They did testing ct scans to make sure there were no other clots through his legs into his abdomen...Something showed up then that didn't appear quite right.

    They put my dad on levonox a blood thinner that was injected into the stomach to thin his blood to disolve the clot then sent home on coumadin *spelling? * Scheduled for more testing..

    Two weeks later he had a CT scan scheduled and had that done..Then we sat in the office for about 20 mins and they came in and said we'd like to admit you to the hospital for some more testing...Not a huge deal right?

    This is the beginning of my nightmare. They took him across the street to the hospital did some more tests which included his first PET scan. Detected a Shadow as they described. Then his first endoscopy...revealed stomach cancer stage IV...means no surgery. Means Terminal dreaded words no one wants to hear. All my dad's treatment has been pallitive so now he got into the chemo cycles. 5FU was used several cycles I think 5 or 6...then the doctors redid the pet scan.. we were told he responded well the tumors weren't progressing, they actually were shrinking... Did i mention TUMORS?? when we started it was one. Now it's plural... this was Feb of last year 2010. Then he was doing so well the doctors adopted the "wait and see" approach. 90 days later he was scheduled for another pet scan.

    Two days later we sat in the office awaiting the results. Doctor comes in looks at us. "We need to get aggressive with this" Your tumors are growing and you now have legions on your spine. So now we are faced with the fact that it's time for more chemo. This time they told us the "big guns" as some refer to the big cannons.. Xeloda. It hasn't made much progress for my dad unfortunately. He did well on it for about a month. Then we encountered issues with his insurance not willing to pay for it. 6000.00 a month was more than they were willing ...actually not even a month it was every three weeks. So treatment was halted till insurance finally agreed.

    In the meantime the tumors grew and spread. Now Here we sit June 2011 We've been told there isn't much time left two months Pretty much. Hospice is now with us. So it's very difficult. Im trying to stay strong for him and the rest of the family but It's a struggle. If you want to know more feel free to contact me. It's just an outline of what my family has faced.

    Best of luck. And Key is to get diagnosed in early stages, many more options are available and even remissions.

    Valerie from Kentucky
  • Faithful_Angel
    Faithful_Angel Member Posts: 86
    #7
    zukiness said:

    P. White
    Please don't feel as if nobody cares about your situation. I just joined this site a couple days ago and no one has responded to my posts either, but I don't believe it's because of apathy. We are all just going through our own personal journeys with this horrible disease. But please, please continue sharing your story, update as often as you'd like and if your father is unfortunately diagnosed, then maybe we can establish a relationship where we can all help and comfort each other. I know that by just typing the words of what I'm dealing with, it's a small form of therapy. I don't have to keep it bottled up inside, I don't have to say the same things over and over to my husband ( even though he is more than willing to hear me repeat myself a million times ) I guess what I'm trying to tell you, bottom line, we are all here because of the same horrible reason. Stomach cancer has affected our lives, either it's in our bodies, or it's invaded the precious body of someone we love. P. White, you and your father will be in my prayers. Please come back and let us know what happens.

    I'm copy/pasting my first post ( from Monday, June 12, 2011 ) below :

    My 32y/o sister was diagnosed 2 weeks ago with stage 4 stomach cancer, mets to the lymph nodes. She had been admitted to a hospital 6 weeks ago with symptoms of pancreatitis and had her gall bladder removed. After release from the hospital, she was still miserable, vomiting and in extreme pain. Ultrasound, mri, ct scan and colonoscopy found nothing. It was the endoscope that found a large tumor growing on the left side. It is pushing into her lungs and back, causing unbearable pain. She cannot keep down 95% of liquids or foods, but the size of the tumor makes her appear like she's very well fed. She has no history of smoking, drinking or drug use. She has 2 young sons and a very supportive, loving and overwhelmed husband. She saw the oncologist yesterday and he wants to run additional scans and tests before starting chemo. She is scheduled to have a port put into her chest and chemo treatments started within 2 weeks. We live 750 miles apart, and I have my own medical problems so it's proving to be difficult to be with her as much as I feel I need to. My 2 children and I just got drove home yesterday from being there for 5 days. I'm going thru the emotions of shock, anger, sadness, denial.... in such vicious cycles.
    I guess I just wanted to jump on here after reading what everyone else was going thru and get acquainted.
    My baby sister is just physically and emotionally broken and seeing her hooked up to oxygen and in so much pain was unbearable. It doesn't look good, statistically, but I can see from some of the above posts that this evil disease is treatable and beatable. I just pray that my sis has some fight left in her. It all happened so suddenly and the diagnosis was completely unexpected as she never has had anything more serious that strep throat in her entire life.
    Thank you for reading my story. I don't have a lot of details but will update and check back on here regularly. I pray that everyone is feeling okay and experiencing miracles in their lives.

    First of all to both of you
    Welcome
  • have2believe
    have2believe Member Posts: 134
    #8
    Faithful_Angel said:

    Welcome
    First of all to both of you welcome to a club none of us ever wanted to be in. Im the caregiver *34 yrs old* to my father who is only 57 he's been diagnosed with stage IV stomach cancer...at the junction of the stomach and esophagus so he crosses over to the symptoms of esophagus cancer too... He was diagnosed in feb 2009 after being admitted to the hospital with leg pain....*came to find out he had a blood clot in his left calf. They did testing ct scans to make sure there were no other clots through his legs into his abdomen...Something showed up then that didn't appear quite right.

    They put my dad on levonox a blood thinner that was injected into the stomach to thin his blood to disolve the clot then sent home on coumadin *spelling? * Scheduled for more testing..

    Two weeks later he had a CT scan scheduled and had that done..Then we sat in the office for about 20 mins and they came in and said we'd like to admit you to the hospital for some more testing...Not a huge deal right?

    This is the beginning of my nightmare. They took him across the street to the hospital did some more tests which included his first PET scan. Detected a Shadow as they described. Then his first endoscopy...revealed stomach cancer stage IV...means no surgery. Means Terminal dreaded words no one wants to hear. All my dad's treatment has been pallitive so now he got into the chemo cycles. 5FU was used several cycles I think 5 or 6...then the doctors redid the pet scan.. we were told he responded well the tumors weren't progressing, they actually were shrinking... Did i mention TUMORS?? when we started it was one. Now it's plural... this was Feb of last year 2010. Then he was doing so well the doctors adopted the "wait and see" approach. 90 days later he was scheduled for another pet scan.

    Two days later we sat in the office awaiting the results. Doctor comes in looks at us. "We need to get aggressive with this" Your tumors are growing and you now have legions on your spine. So now we are faced with the fact that it's time for more chemo. This time they told us the "big guns" as some refer to the big cannons.. Xeloda. It hasn't made much progress for my dad unfortunately. He did well on it for about a month. Then we encountered issues with his insurance not willing to pay for it. 6000.00 a month was more than they were willing ...actually not even a month it was every three weeks. So treatment was halted till insurance finally agreed.

    In the meantime the tumors grew and spread. Now Here we sit June 2011 We've been told there isn't much time left two months Pretty much. Hospice is now with us. So it's very difficult. Im trying to stay strong for him and the rest of the family but It's a struggle. If you want to know more feel free to contact me. It's just an outline of what my family has faced.

    Best of luck. And Key is to get diagnosed in early stages, many more options are available and even remissions.

    Valerie from Kentucky

    Valerie, I'm so sorry
    I'm also the caregiver to for parent, my mom (I'm 26, she's 60). Yes, diagnosis at early stage is key to more options, but the symptoms are so slight that very few learn about their diagnosis at such a stage. It's really sad that we're at the will of insurance agencies and the health-care system. As a single mother, my mom works to keep her insurance. She's on xeloda now and is doing ok, although she returned to work recently. I'm a bit nervous about that, but will do whatever I can to support her. I'm so sorry about your father. It's not easy being strong esp when you have no choice. I wish you and your family much peace and strength during this time.

    Lana

    11/2009- diagnosed through biopsy of enlarged lymph node on neck, endoscopy confirmed gastric ca
    12/2009- began cisplatin/ irinotecan
    4/2010- off chemo (mets disappeared, tumor in stomach stable)
    12/2010- recurrence in abdomen (no organ involved), began Folfox
    5/2011- now on xeloda (all but one of the mets disappeared, tumor in stomach no longer detectable)
  • liveinhope
    liveinhope Member Posts: 83
    #9
    p white,all of us on this
    p white,all of us on this site have been through the stage you are in.Its only when your father's tests are completed that you would know the type and extent of the disease(if any)
    and the course of treatment-Chemotherapy or surgery or both.Meanwhile keep up your spirits and his, for the road ahead could be very tough.Many of us (in our case my son)are living active normal lives after months of treatment.Your father and you have to keep faith and believe there is a way ahead.We hope and pray with you.
    Our best wishes
  • liveinhope
    liveinhope Member Posts: 83
    #10
    p white,all of us on this
    p white,all of us on this site have been through the stage you are in.Its only when your father's tests are completed that you would know the type and extent of the disease(if any)
    and the course of treatment-Chemotherapy or surgery or both.Meanwhile keep up your spirits and his, for the road ahead could be very tough.Many of us (in our case my son)are living active normal lives after months of treatment.Your father and you have to keep faith and believe there is a way ahead.We hope and pray with you.
    Our best wishes
  • liveinhope
    liveinhope Member Posts: 83
    #11
    p white,all of us on this
    p white,all of us on this site have been through the stage you are in.Its only when your father's tests are completed that you would know the type and extent of the disease(if any)
    and the course of treatment-Chemotherapy or surgery or both.Meanwhile keep up your spirits and his, for the road ahead could be very tough.Many of us (in our case my son)are living active normal lives after months of treatment.Your father and you have to keep faith and believe there is a way ahead.We hope and pray with you.
    Our best wishes
  • liveinhope
    liveinhope Member Posts: 83
    #12
    p white,all of us on this
    p white,all of us on this site have been through the stage you are in.Its only when your father's tests are completed that you would know the type and extent of the disease(if any)
    and the course of treatment-Chemotherapy or surgery or both.Meanwhile keep up your spirits and his, for the road ahead could be very tough.Many of us (in our case my son)are living active normal lives after months of treatment.Your father and you have to keep faith and believe there is a way ahead.We hope and pray with you.
    Our best wishes
  • liveinhope
    liveinhope Member Posts: 83
    #13
    p white,all of us on this
    p white,all of us on this site have been through the stage you are in.Its only when your father's tests are completed that you would know the type and extent of the disease(if any)
    and the course of treatment-Chemotherapy or surgery or both.Meanwhile keep up your spirits and his, for the road ahead could be very tough.Many of us (in our case my son)are living active normal lives after months of treatment.Your father and you have to keep faith and believe there is a way ahead.We hope and pray with you.
    Our best wishes
  • Faithful_Angel
    Faithful_Angel Member Posts: 86
    #14
    Checking on you....
    It's been about 2 weeks since you posted about the upcoming testing ...Just wondering how you are? How did the results come out? and most of all is there anything we can do to help? It's amazing what talking about things can do , release anxiety in my case usually. Please Let us know how you're doing?


    Sending Love and Hugs,

    Angel

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