Postby sjring » Thu Oct 02, 2014 4:47 am
I've actually had to think about this subject for a couple of days, and my wife and I sort of had a discussion around this subject last night, partially from my thinking about this thread and partially that yesterday was the 1-year anniversary of my first meeting with my oncologist, and the words "Not Curable"; "Controllable"; and "Palliative" were broached along with a lot of statistics. But as we all know 86.67325% of statistics are made up.
I see 3 possible scenarios for passing. 1) The cancer ultimately breaks through chemo (or whatever other treatment follows) and the disease gets me. 2) The cardio toxicity of the chemo drugs catch up with me (because I have been told that basically ending chemo is not in my future) and cardiac disease is the main cause of death in male members of my family, or 3) as a diabetic, with rather variable blood glucose readings (especially after the steroid premed before chemo), I throw a clot which either causes a heart attack or I stroke out. The last 2 would be the quick ways to go, and I honestly have no idea which of the three is the better way, so my personal prayers are that I'm ok with what ever the universe (or deity of you choosing) has in store for me. My wife's preference is #1. My hope is that whichever way it is it doesn't happen for a long time. No male along my father's blood line has lived to see their grandchildren. My grandfather switched off at age 59 and my father essentially they same way at age 60. I have two teenagers, 13 (DD) and 17 (DS), and I have no intent to rushing either into having children of their own.
I've heard of palliative sedation. It was offered to Marco, or so I read, and it was used on my grandmother (although they didn't specifically use that term, they said it was antihistamines to make her breath easier and morphine for pain- either way the effect was the same). I don't know if that's for me or not, I guess time will tell.
I'm in fairly good shape at the moment, not declared NED but the one remaining liver met (of the original 10+) is slowly shrinking, the lymph nodes look resolved and there's no more visible stranding from the colon. No clue what's happening inside the colon, but I'm told that responds better to the chemo than the mets.
But I guess I've started rambling. What would I want from all of you as support? I'm all in favor of prayers from y'all. I don't know if they help, but there's no evidence they hurt as well. Don't worry about swinging any poultry, but if you make a really good matzoth ball soup.....
What I would want more is support for my wife, if she should choose to turn to it here. Right now she cannot stand the thought of looking at this site, but has instead turned to her faith. I have asked her to at least leave a note on this site and let people know "when it happens", I started using a password management program and she has the master password.
50 YO Husband & father of 2 teenagers.
DX 9/9/13 Stage 4 cc (at age 48)
16 Rounds FOLFOX + Avastin (Oct-13 to May-14)
Maintenance chemo - Avastin & 5-FU infusions (Jun-14 to Jul-15)
Jul-15: Mets to lymph nodes, resuming FOLFOX
Sep-15: MRI showed stability, back to maintenance chemo.