Don't know how I haven't seen this thread but my heart goes out to each and everyone of you who has been affected by this shithouse disease. Believe me, I'm going through it too and the worse thing about is you can do nothing about it. It's demoralising and eats away at you.
Just a quick brief, my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer is 2007. She had months of chemotherapy and then a skin saving mastectomy. then she had weeks of radiotherapy. An expander was inserted so the breast skin was OK ready for reconstruction but she caught an infection that ate away a hole in the side of the breast. So, the expander was taken out, muscle taken from her back and her breast was reconstructed a bit earlier than planned. This took us all the way to the end of 2008, October I think. She was given the all clear around Xmas time 2008 when her latest scan and blood tests were good and no signs of cancer.
She went back to work in March 2009. Within 8 weeks of her going back to work, she had a painful right leg. Didn't think a great deal about it but she jarred it at work getting off a chair and it became painful. She also developed a tickly cough, so went to see the GP, mainly about the leg. It took 2 weeks to get the results back from the X Ray and she went to see the GP who told her it was back and she needed a scan as well. The cancer had eaten her hip joint away and it was very weak,so we were sent back to Whiston to see the oncologist that week after the scan. We was told the cancer was in her hip, hence the problems and shown the X rays and scans, which also shown that there were tumours in her liver and lungs. It was then explained this was terminal, no prognosis as in time, but it was made clear the main concern was quality of life and to try and stabilise the cancer as much as possible.
She was sent home on crutches due to the hip and booked in the following week for a hip replacement which went very well and she was out in 4 days. This was end of May 2009. She has been on chemo tablets since then which have worked well and shrunk and stabilised the tumours in her liver and lung and she was pretty good apart from the side effects of the chemo which affected her feet and hands making them peel and very sore. She was having 3 month scans and we went around 2 weeks ago to see the oncologist as we do after every scan.
The news wasn't good, there was fluid around her heart, inside the pericardium and also a little in her lungs. Until they analyse it they couldn't be sure exactly what caused it but due to her condition we were told it's more than likely due to the cancer. The oncologist said the he would have keyhole surgery arranged to rid the pericardium of the fluid and arranged to see the surgeon the following week. Unfortunately, the wifes breathing deteriorated rapidly over the weekend and it got to the stage where she couldn't get up the stairs without stress. A week last Monday I took her into Whiston A&E where they did some scans, more scans and tests and the fluid was compressing her heart as the pericardium wasn't as forgiving and later that day she had the fluid drained from her pericardium. They extracted just over a litre of fluid, via syringe!! Within hours her breathing was normal again which was more than a relief. She was in hospital overnight and the following day she came home. The day after eventually got to see the surgeon and he explained that he was going to cut a hole in her pericardium so the fluid would drain out and not build up and she goes in on Sunday to Broadgreen to have the op on Monday.
Some people are fortunate in the fact that once it's gone it doesn't come back, others, such as the wife are unfortunate that it comes back, but back with avengeance. It's very difficult to comfort her because she knows as well as I do, no matter how much you say it'll be alright, we both know it will catch us up eventually. All I can do, apart from feeling hopeless in the situation, is comfort her, support her and spend as much time as possible with her.