Hello and thanks for posting

I'm sorry to read about your dad's bowel cancer diagnosis. This must be a difficult time time for you all as a family especially with the added stress of him having dementia.

In your dad's situation, I imagine his doctors feel that having surgery or chemotherapy for his bowel cancer would likely do more harm than good. At that stage of dementia, a person usually needs a lot of help with daily life, may not fully understand what's happening and can become very distressed by hospital stays, treatments, and having tests or scans.

You have posted on the ask the nurses section of the forum and you are asking for other users experience who may be going through something similar. Anyone is welcome to reply on here but you may get more response from others who may be or have gone through similar by posting in a different section of the forum as well as here.

Doctors base their assessment of someone's prognosis on their experience of looking after other patients with the same cancer. This will vary to a degree, depending on a person’s age, extent of their cancer, and their general health But it's important to bear in mind they cannot give exact timelines as cancer behaves differently in every person, but they can hopefully help you get a better sense of things.

I hope this is of some help. Give us a ring if you would like to talk anything over. The number to call is Freephone 0808 800 4040 and the lines are open from 9am till 5pm Monday to Friday.

Kind regards,

Celene