Hi Kelfin,

Sorry to hear about your mum.

Has the chemo stopped working? The trouble is that you're fighting evolution. The cancer has its own mutated DNA and over time it evolves immunity to the chemo drugs. My wife found that she became immune first to platinum based drugs and then to the second. After that in October 2014 they told her that they couldn't do any more - she pushed to go back and retry the platinum drugs and we got another 6 months out of that before that stopped working.

We went to see the guys at the Royal Marsden about clinical trials after that in September last year. Unfortunately her white blood cell count was too low for them to accept her - as it happened 2 weeks after that she had a major incident and died from a complication on the first of October.

They were pretty straight with us at the Marsden - they said that only about 1 in 10 people get any real benefit from trial drugs but when you're running out of the standard drugs 1 in 10 starts to look attractive.

Anyway if your mum's blood count is still  good she might want to consider it.

www.cancerresearchuk.org/.../find-a-clinical-trial

This one might be suitable

www.cancerresearchuk.org/.../a-trial-comparing-pembrolizumab-and-chemotherapy-for-head-and-neck-cancer

Talk to her oncologist about trials if you think it might be something she'd be interested in.

Best of luck

I'm so sorry to hear about your mum. I can totally relate. My mum told my sister and I on Friday night that she days weeks, possibly months left to live. She kept how bad the cancer had got from us so it was a complete shock. 

After she told us 8 hours later she got admitted to hospital due to pain in her stomach due to a partial bowel blockage. She is still in hospital now. 

It's awful and I have no real advise just try to be there as much as you can for her.

Make some last few memories and take some last few photos of you both. 

I have been told that when her end of life is imminent she will deteriorate very quickly.,

Look after yourself & hold your loved ones near x

How crazy to think that exactly a week before I was, you were sitting down with your mum trying to come to terms with losing her. Last Friday my brother and I found out that after being clear for one and a half years, my mums ovarian cancer has recurred, which means that it is terminal. She said that if everything they want to do for her works, she could have as long as three years, if not, 6 months. 

She didn't look upset, she seemed excited about all the things she wants to try and do with us first. I cried, a lot, but I'm trying to keep myself together for her because it would devastate her if I ruined my life because of it. It's hard, though, I'm only 18 and I left for University last year, and I can barely stand being away from her now, she's so young.

I'm so sorry to hear about your mum, how old are you and your sister? I know it will never be easy for us, but this time is one of the hardest, because this is when you have the moments of realising what it really means. Like that moment when it hits you that she won't be at your graduation, your wedding, and she'll never get to meet her grandchildren. I guess we just have to do our best to make every minute count.

My dad's father died of skin cancer when he was 14, so I'm very lucky to have a father who really understands and is there for me. My parents have been divorced for a long time but he cried when we told him, I'd never seen that before. He told me that there is life on the other side, which is something I hope we all can try to remember. 

Cry when you need to cry, but remember to keep laughing and smiling together, cancer has already taken so much, we can't let it steal our final happy memories too. 

All of my love to you and your family x x