My mum was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer 9 weeks ago, she has liver metastasis and it has also spread to her lymph nodes. On top of this, they discovered a DVT. She had a permanent lung drain fitted 2 weeks ago and the district nurse is draining it every other day, getting between 300 & 400ml each time. She has really deteriorated in the past 2 days, she is losing very heavy blood and clots from her rectum, her skin is yellow, she is anaemic, doesn't want to eat or drink, very confused and dehydrated and can no longer manage stairs or getting herself onto a commode. At the moment we are struggling with providing care apart from carers coming in once a day. The doctor thinks that the cancer may have spread to her bowel. Has anyone else experienced anything like this and based on these symptoms are we looking at a prognosis of days or weeks as we are unsure when to instigate her end of life treatment. We are finding the whole process very distressing and feel as if we have been abandoned
Update - unfortunately the cancer has now spread to mums spine and her legs are now paralysed. The palliative care team, district nursing team and the care agency have been fantastic and made mum comfortable so we can spend some quality time with her in her last few days. Anyone in this situation please fight for what you think is right, we are so grateful for all of the support we are now getting, it was just a case of identifying the correct route to take which turned out to be the palliative care team who then set the wheels in motion. Sending warm wishes to everyone going through the same journey as us
