Hello Sue, your husband sounds just like mine! My husband has bowel cancer which has spread to his liver and peritoneal area despite two different sets of chemo. Eventually, the oncologist has told us that the chemo isn't working and that he did not believe that anything could be done so everyone agreed to stop treatment and the oncologist discharged him early this year.
Now that he doesn't have the chemo and regular visit to the oncologist, he just won't talk to nurses or McMillan or the nurses from the hospice who called to talk about options going forward. He sees the GP once a month, but it's just for a chat, no checks etc. Just a 5mn talk where the GP says "how do you feel?" and he replies "absolutely fine", just so he can get out of the room as quickly as possible...
I am worried sick as he hasn't really been eating for a couple of weeks now, and I also strongly suspects he has ascites (build up of fluids in abdomen) as he is very swollen and tonight he's having a lot of acid reflux but still he says he's ok and doesn't want me to call the doctor or go and see her when the surgery opens again on Tuesday. so I am not sure what is going to happen as the fluid will continue to build up but he won't go and have it looked at.
I don't know what to do, this is driving me insane to see him like that and not being able to do anything about it :(
I think the medics often phrase their answers dependng on the way the patients ask their questions. My own were very blunt, impersonal and clnical - as were the answes. As it was, the prognosis I was given was too pessimistic. I read some research which said they almost always get it wrong and more often than not the err on the overly-optimistic. I can well understand your frustration.
