I've come back from a very distressing day at the chemo unit. My oncologist thinks I am now too ill to have any chemo at all as he feels my cancer won't respond and it will ruin the quality of my life. He feels there is a small chance that radiotherapy might relieve the blockage at the bottom of the bronchus but it might do more damage to my lungs aand my previously radiated skin. He doesn't think a stent will help as the tumour is too large on the outside and pushing inwards. He did consult with another consultant who specialises in radiotherapy who thought it might be possible to have some radiotherapy but I was indanger of it damaging my heart and lung and skin. This tumour is now around my right side of my heart, my aorta and my main bronchus and the right branch of my bronchus. I mentioned that I was having trouble swallowing and when he looked at the Ct scan at the end of October, he spotted that the tumour is now squashing my oesophagus and that my oesophagus completely disappears in one shot on the Ct - yet again not reported.
We had a long discussion about options - he is not prepared to put in a long line for chemo or fluids and is not prepared to put a feeding tube in so basically I will jsut dehydrate or starve to death and he is saying they would not let that happen. If my oesophagus closes off then how do I get fluid in? eventually, he agreed to try 1 dose of gem/carbo chemo to see how i get on with it but to miss out the day 8 dose. If I tolerate it, then he might consider a long line for the rest of the course.
He feels I probably have 3-4 months left at the most so feel very devastated. I pushed for the chemo as that is what the consultant at the Marsden said this was the best option but he was worried about my ability to rebuild my blood cells.
So now feel am now on the final countdown and I don't know what to do first or what I should be doing.