Hi all,
Mum is 91 and has had a lot happen over the last few months/weeks. She had breast cancer 17 years ago. It came back about 3 years back, and broke through her skin, so she has lived with a cancerous, slow growing ulcer which is now about the size of a tennis ball, and is bandaged to stop it bleeding etc.In Aug 16, she got a lump on her neck, just under her jaw bone. This was confirmed as secondary cancer, and seems VERY agressive. In 4 months it has grown to the size of a golf ball, and has also become an open ulcer wound which weeps and bleeds slightly. Due to her frailty and dementia, treatment was not really an option, so she has been getting palative care. Over Nov/Dec things got really bad. She kept forgetting why the district nurses were putting bandages on her neck and breast, so would remove them, and then they bled, causeing a number of rushes up to A&E to sort things. This all came to a head just before Christmas, when she was fast tracked by the NHS into a nursing home. The neck had been causing her real pain, and the local hospice is now involved with her care/pain relief, in conjunction with the nursing staff.
I appreciate that due to her remarkable age and illness that she probably doesn't have long left, but no one is really being straight with me. The NHS will do a review in a couple of months time, to see if she still requires the CHC Funding and nursing care. I am sure that will be the case, but no one will commit to saying that. A hospice member told me she will probably 'not be in a good place' in 3 months time, but again, no one has directly told me this is terminal, and given an extimate of how long she might have left.
I could really do with just being given some straight answers, as I feel that will help me cope with this terrible feeling waiting for the enevitable.....
