I have stage 4 bowel cancer and they will not do surgery on my bowel . I was wondering why not ? There are several liesions on my liver but not spreading . Should I go back to USA for treatment and I'm planning to go back next summer .
Welcome becky4231 sorry for the reason why you on here this is good site it have helped me taking to different people who in same situation there loads information on here as well and you can also ask nurse if you got question. I don't know if you read my situation why I'm on here. If you click on about me there bit of information. My mother got inoperable bowel cancer we didn't know why they wouldn't operation until few weeks ago when she was in hospital with different thing and here speclist seen here and told here that the tumour on blood vessel and if he operated she bleed to death and it's gone in here blood as well only treatment they offered was chemo the same one she had before that made here I'll so she told them no there nothing else . Have they told you anything I would ask to see you dr again and just say you want answers only you dr can tell you why . if you just want chat I'm here . Take care
hi becky4231 im sorry to hear that, never give up , ask lots of questions, and try everything, ultimately your life is in your hands, never settle, always question every decision. I wish you all the best. sending you strength, with many others on here......cococat
Additionally if you do want a second opinion from a doc in the US, I wouldn't put it off until the summer. For Cancer treatment, time is unfortunately always a factor.
On a more practical side, do you have insurance in the US. From my limited view into the healthcare system in the US, that is a critical piece of the puzzle.
Please speak with your doctors here at the earliest, and if need be follow up with the one's in the US. Please dont put it off until the summer.
There are several possible reasons why surgery isn't an option it would be hard to guess the reasons in your case. In my case the main reason was that my Oesophageal Cancer had grown around my aorta which increased the risk of catastrophic bleeding should the knife slip by even a tiny fraction of an inch. I was also told that it would be hard to prevent cancer cells getting into my blood stream if I had surgery. Also the NHS has some pretty tight protocols around the cost effectiveness of interventions. If the surgery isn't curative and can't be guaranteed to extend your life significantly it probably won't be deemed cost effective.
If you have private health insurance, you will probably be able to get the operation you want done privately in the U.K. A friend was in a similar position and was able to get several interventions funded via private insurance and her life was extended by several years.
Not my specialist area but you may find it cheaper to go private in the UK than in the US - our clinicians don't have to pay the such high premiums for Medical Defence Insurance here.
2 of my daughters live in America & my eldest has been talking about the success they are having with trials with cannabis oil. I havn't researched this myself & you may not be interested but I thought I would put it out there.
Thanks for your suggestion Carol. There has been a lot of interest on the internet and in the press about cannnabis oil. But at the moment it isn't known how helpful it might turn out to be in treating cancer and it isn't readily available as a cancer treatment. We have a blog post which sums up the research so far which you might find helpful to look at. You can read this here.
