I have been reading up on liver function / failure as I believe my mom is exhibiting some of the symptoms. She missed the last 2 FOLFOX/Avastin chemo treatments due to poor blood work (I dont have the exact details on that). We are scheduled to meet with the oncologist tomorrow to discuss CT scan taken last Friday. Although I dont know for sure yet, I suspect she is exhibiting liver ascites and poor liver function. Despite the 3 week break from chemo, she continues to be extremely fatigued, has almost no appetite, some shortness of breath, and has some noticable confusion / absentmindedness. Her abdomen also appears to be quite swollen and somewhat hard-- I just read up on liver ascites and the symptoms seem to match hers very closely.
Has anyone here, caregivers or patients, seen or dealt with this before? As positive as I am trying to stay about everything, I cant help but think this is what we are going to hear tomorrow. It seems the FOLFOX/Avastin combo was holding her CEA steady in the mid 30's for a while, but the last blood test result showed a reading in the 50's. I think they are thinking of switching to FOLFIRI, but if her symptoms are due to ascites / poor liver function, I'm going to press the onc very hard on the living donor liver transplant. I just read that Ochsner New Orleans does indeed have Living Relative Liver transplantation. Metastatic cancer is listed as a contraindication to standard liver transplants, but I am hoping with all my heart that we can circumvent that by going the living donor route. This facility is just a 3 hour drive from our home-- the logistics just absolutely do not get any better for us. I am the same blood type and believe I will be a match in a workup-- I am just hoping the doctors dont stand in our way.
Liver Ascites - http://www.merckmanuals.com/home/liver- ... se/ascites
Liver Failure - http://www.merckmanuals.com/home/liver- ... er-failure