Hello katherine23, 

Welcome to Cancer Chat though I am sorry to hear about your dad. It must be such a shock for you and your family. Regarding his prognosis, perhaps your family could get in touch with the consultant and ask what the best thing to do would be? It is a very personal decision but your dad's medical team may have some good suggestions for you. You can also talk things through with our nurses by ringing the free nurse helpline 0808 800 4040 - their line is open Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm.

I thought I would also share this page with you from our website which is specifically designed for the friends, caregivers and family of cancer patients. It contains a section on looking after yourself when you are looking after a loved one which I thought would be appropriate for your mum and it will give you some good tips on how to get support for your mum during this difficult time. 

We're thinking of you, your mum and your family and hope that your dad's chemotherapy session goes well.

Best wishes, 

Lucie, Cancer Chat Moderator

Sorry for your horrible news. We had a similar situation with my father in law. He kept being knocked back for an X-ray after complaining about a bad back for months. Eventually he was referred to physio and sent home with a sheet of exercises. Finally one day he couldn’t get out of bed and we had to arrange for an ambulance. It turned out he had a broken bone in his neck caused by lung cancer which had spread to his bone, brain and adrenal glands. He received one dose of radiation and was sent home with palliative care. We told Jim his condition but because the cancer was in his brain, towards the end when it and caused quite bad confusion he didn’t even realise he had it. I guess the important thing is to make sure he is free of pain. That was the one thing he feared the most- being in pain.

 Make sure you have a district nurse in place and a hospice team who can come to the house. I can’t lie, it can be traumatic, you really have to prepare for it but the medication now is so much more advanced to deal with symptoms. 

Hello,

my dad has lung cancer, he now has really bad sciatica. He has been scanned but they say nothing is wrong, but he's just not getting better so I'm nervous. 
what's worse is he is STILL in constant pain... he's been in pain for weeks. He's taking what seems like a lot of prescribed pain meds-but I'm not an expert. What worked for your father in law? Was he in pain? My dad has SCLC and we know the prognosis is not good.. he fought it back in Oct last year but it came back and now he's so low from the fight, although apparently his primary tumour is shrinking. We are so confused though that he's still week and in pain despite stopping all treatment weeks ago. He also is suffering from a fever still, despite spending 20 days in hospital on antibiotics, did your father in law have fevers?