Re: Cancer is back

Posted by Mark - IN. on May 06, 2015 at 18:13:20 from (98.206.242.17):

In Reply to: Cancer is back posted by onefarmer on May 06, 2015 at 11:45:19:

I'm very sorry to hear that, and offer my sincerest of prayers.

My brother went through about a year and a half of chemo for stage 4 colon cancer. He was going in every other week, say on a Tuesday where they'd hook him up to an IV for about four hours, and then some sort of pack that he wore that injected him with chemo that was timed to run out on Thursday. He did that for about a year and a half, and then in February of 2014 on my birthday of all days, was pronounced to be "Cancer free". Happy birthday to me! However, a few months later it came back. I've heard two tumors. And one thing while he was going through chemo, he became a very grouchy person, and I SWEAR TO GOD, developed "chemo brain" where he'd forget things, and imagine things that never happened. AND ALSO, neuropothy is a side affect of chemo, and there are drugs, medications to help slow it down or prevent it. Neuropothy as I understand it, hits the extremities such as fingers, toes, feet where one loses feeling, they go numb. My brother and a lady that I know, both refused to take the medications and are now paying for it. Neither can feel their feet or fingers, and that makes walking hard, as well as picking up and holding things. TAKE THE MEDICATION.

Anyway, a few months later my brother started feeling under the weather in some ways, suspected, went an took tests, cancer returned. Then he went under radiation for a few months, four I think, and hit his lifetime of radiation treatments. He can never ever be treated with radiation again, ever, and when all was said and done, the radiation treatments had no affect on his cancer, so four those four months, it continued to grow.

January or February of this year, new physician, my brother went in and had the tumor(s) surgically removed. The tumors were small enough that they were able to cut them out, BUT to do so, they had to disconnect his ??? large intestines from "near" his sphincter muscle, which is tricky, because if that gets damaged, a person loses control of...output, if you know what I mean. While he is healing, they didn't give him a colostomy, but rather something similar, called an "illiostomy" that requires a bag as well. They figured that he would have the reroute for about a month and a half and that my brother would be out of the hospital a few days after surgery. He had surgery on a Tuesday, was expected out of the hospital Friday, Saturday at the latest. I was out of town that week, but got in Friday night and went up to visit him. When I got there on Friday, none of my family had been there that day to visit him because they were told he'd be out Saturday, so everyone stayed away, give him a break. When I got there Friday night, he was on his death bed. He was uncontentious, had 19 different IVs going, was barely breathing. My brother was on his death bed and no one in my family knew it but me. We all have some germ of some sort in our intestines that doesn't harm us because we're healthy. Somehow, it got into his blood stream and nearly killed him. Something was leaking and much of the IVs into him also leaked into his body cavity. All in all, he nearly died, I called my family members and said "Come see him now, he won't be here in the morning". Something burst somewhere and he ended up dumping a gallon of stuff all over the bed and floor while unconscious. He came out of it. Spent about a month and a half in the hospital, at least half of that in intensive care.

He's at home now, my house because he's also blind. He has a disease called "Retinitis Pigmintosa" that physically deteriorates the optic nerve...and as it turns out, somehow goes hand in hand with colon cancer. Two different physicians, one in Indiana and one in Illinois, neither of which know or ever met each other both piped up with "...that goes along with colon cancer" as soon as I mentioned Retinitis Pigmintosa. Guess what? They're both right...it apparently does.

So now, my brother's on the mend. He started out at 6' 2" at about 200 pounds, a couple of weeks ago was down to 123 pounds. I called home today, they say that he's up to about 130 pounds. His biggest problem now? His mind. He's not doing everything that they tell him to. Actually, he's doing much of what he's not supposed to. They have a feeding tube through his front, and he gets about 3 hours worth of IV food into his belly above his naval. He has a catheter in his...you know what...because he isn't putting out the amount or urrine because he's not taking in as much water because it thins out the output to his illiostomy because it causes him to have to empty his bag every hour or two. He's supposed to be drinking "Boost" or, I forget, but its similar to Boost, and thats what they use at the hospital. He won't drink it because he says it tastes too chalky. My brother, whom I love dearly, has become one of the biggest pains in the you know what, and my family is paying for it. The sooner that he joins in the mend for himself, the sooner that he will be able to have his illiostomy removed, and go through a reversal...what needs to happen. The thing that has him going now is that at one of his recent doctor visits, his surgeon asked him, "After what we did for you, after what the nursing staff did for you, after what your family is doing for you...do you want to die? Because you are dying, and its not the cancer because the cancer is gone". That sobered him up. Now he's on the mend. He's still somehow very angry, bitter, and all kinds of stuff that isn't himself, but he's physically on the mend, and he's getting better at being one huge PITA.

My brother has new friends that he has met while undergoing cancer treatment, other persons that have cancer, some incurable. Some of them ARE dying, and they are fighting tooth and nail. They come over to cheer my brother up, because a large part of healing and getting healthy is mental attitude. My brother, whom is cancer free, at least for now, is dragging his feet on healing in front of people, friends that cry at night because they aren't nearly as fortunate as him, and he's too blind to see, mentally.

Good luck, God bless. AND although your bills may be in the sky, pay at least $20 each per month to show that you're making an effort, and you will keep your belongings. My brother? That too is another story. He's my brother, but not the brother that I had...mentally. It HAS to be chemo brain. He was never like this ever.

Mark

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