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Non Small Cell Lung Cancer

NSM1984
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Hello,

I hope you're well.

I've lurked on the chat rooms for a while now as my beautiful mum was sadly diagnosed with lung cancer back in March. We lost her just over 2 weeks ago and now that the funeral is over, I'm finally having some time to gather my thoughts and try to come to terms with such a life changing event. 
 

I absolutely appreciate the advice on here is general and that for specifics I would need to get in touch with Oncology and mums GP but I'm hoping my question is general enough for a little help here. 
 

Mum had a tumour on her right lung (death cert mentions right lung favouring squamous cell) and where we knew her treatment was palliative, she went downhill within days & it was all quite unexpected. Mum never had issues with breathing, it was solely the pain the tumour caused in her back....she always described it as someone tightening a corset or girdle round her lower back and it niggled a bit when the morphine wore off. This pain got worse and worse until she was at a huge level of morphine for her size (our nurse said it should be enough to tranquilize a horse yet she stayed awake and was still sore) - the pain didn't ease and the decision was made to give her a syringe driver and colostomy bag, at this point we were told she had days left & over the next 5 days she gradually fell into an unconscious state & on the final day the secretions got quite bad and she eventually took her last few breaths. It was quite a traumatic thing for us to watch but I understand she wouldn't have been aware due to the morphine and Midazolam. 

I guess my main questions were how did the lung cancer kill her - what did it do to actually cause her to pass? Was it the morphine needed to control the pain? 

What caused her to slip into unconsciousness a few days after the syringe driver was put in - the dose was similar/less to what she had been taking the week before?

A lot of what I read online about the last few days of lung cancer it focuses on breathing issues which she didn't have, it seemed to be the pain of the tumour - I'm trying to piece things together although appreciate it will be with general info as we won't know exacts. 
 

I'm so sorry that this is so lengthy! Any help would be so very appreciated! 
 

Nikki 

  • Hello Nikki and thanks for posting, 

    I am very sorry to learn about your mum and can understand you wondering what actually led to her death.

    Sometimes when there is a lot of cancer spread around the body (tumour burden) it can alter how everything functions. All the things that usually work in tandem in the body and are finely balanced are thrown out of equilibrium and eventually the body becomes unable to cope and organs can fail. 

    Specific things can happen, for example blood clots can occur and travel and if cancer spreads to the bone marrow, it can crowd out the normal production of blood cells which might have a knock on effect making people more susceptible to infection and bleeding. And sometimes a cancer can cause a large amount of bleeding by growing directly into a blood vessel. 

    I am not sure why your mum had a colostomy bag, I wondered if the lung cancer had spread to her bowel and was causing an obstruction?

    Medicines like morphine and sedation are given to control symptoms not hasten death so I don't think they will have been a factor, but whatever was causing the severe back pain your mum had might have been. I think tumour burden is probably the most likely explanation, but do talk to your mum's doctors and find out what they think.

    I hope this helps a little at this difficult time for you and that you have lots of support. . If you want to talk anything over, please call us on Freephone 0808 800 4040, we are here weekdays from 9-5. 

    Best wishes, 

    Julia

  • Offline in reply to CRUK Nurse Julia

    Hi [@CRUK Nurse Julia]‍ 

    Thank you so much for your reply; I can't explain how helpful it is for helping my brain work through the last few weeks. 
     

    My apologies, it was a catheter she had not a colostomy bag....she was immobile so the catheter was to assist with her bathroom needs. 
     

    She did have blood clots in various spots in her body, brain, kidneys etc but she didn't exhibit any symptoms of that other than the slight confusion from the brain clot. I do think it was the pain that caused her to deteriorate and I suppose I just didn't understand how the tumour pain then led to death but you've helped me understand what can go on in the body behind that pain. 
     

    Thanks again for the work you all do  

    Nikki 

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