Hi All

i should probably start with a back story to this. My mum got diagnosed with stage 3 rectal cancer with 2 lymph nodes involved last year. We had a week intensive radiotherapy and 6 sessions on chemotherapy. She was scanned after her 3rd which showed no spread (fantastic news) then after the last lot she was scanned again when an abnormality was found. She was eventually told about this 4 months after her final scan. She was booked to have a PET scan and then see her oncologist. During that meeting that’s when were told it was stage 4 and metastasised to her peritoneum and he didn’t understand why it had spread so quickly so She was also told to have a biopsy so they knew what cancer they were dealing with. After the biopsy she was called to another meeting with her oncologist who said the spread was rectal CA and was rather confused about operating and referred her to the surgeons who have said it would be a rather big operation, but they don’t know what to do either. So she has been put on more chemotherapy and we were told it would be 6 sessions and scans like before. However we are 8 sessions in and no scans so we don’t know how it is responding (is this normal?) but during the 1st session of her 2nd lot of chemotherapy her nurse asked her if we know what her life expectancy is?…… Has she been put on palliative and not been told?  We’ve asked the nurses to see if they can access any of her records but they don’t seem to know what’s going on either.

thanks