Hi All,
New to the forum and looking for some advice.
Apologies if this is a bit over the place, just trying to get out as much relevant information as I can.
My mum (63 years old) was diagnosed with bowel cancer the week before lockdown.
Things have started to pick up now in terms of scans and scopes. My mum received positive news last week, the nurse reckons that they will be able to remove the cancer with an operation, which they hope to carry out in July. Our family is over the moon with this news.
Our problem is that my mum has vasculitus in her legs and struggles to walk, we think she has developed depression since receiving her diagnosis.
The combination of all these things has led to my mum not eating much. She would maybe eat an egg in the morning and some small snacks during the day Probable calorie intake would be less than 500 per day.
My mum is becoming so weak she's not getting out of bed. She has probably been out of bed for about 4-5 hours in the last two weeks. My dad had spoken to the cancer nurse about this. The nurse said that the stage the cancer is at shouldn't be causing her to spend her time in bed and she should be eating fine and that maybe she was depressed. My dad managed to get my mum to speak to her G.P about this has been prescribed anti-depressants. She has been taking them since Saturday.
The tablets that she is on for her conditions are upsetting her stomach and because she can't make it to the toilet she is having accidents.
My dad (67 years old) has been great with looking after her cleaning up the accidents and trying to make sure my mum is fed. He is getting a bit frustrated because my mum won't eat and because she isn't eating she's becoming weaker. We think that by the time July comes around she will be too weak to have the operation.
My dad has tried everything to get her to eat and try and build the strength in her legs. He's tried meal replacement shakes and is constantly out at the shops buying food when my mum gets a wee notion to eat something. The problem is she'll only eat a wee bit when she does want to eat.
Is there any assistance out there that we can get to help us build my mum up so she is fit to have her operation?
Apologies again if this is a bit all over the place.
