Dear Nic186,

Thanks for posting a question. I am sorry to learn about your mum’s situation.

I am afraid that we cannot put you in touch with someone in a similar position. This is because our service is confidential and also because we do not keep people’s details.

The charity Beating Bowel Cancer say that they  can sometimes match up people with bowl cancer to volunteers who have been through it themselves. So it may be worthwhile for you to explore this avenue. Although support from people who have been through it can be invaluable  someone else’s experience is not necessarily going to be the same as your mum’s. Also although other forum members can post in the nurses topic area, they do not always do this. So it might be better for you to post in another part of our forum or on the Beating Bowel Cancer on line community forum and you may get a reply from someone living with the disease.

It is sometimes possible for chemotherapy to shrink secondary liver cancer and make it operable.  But I do not have any reliable statistics about this. Until recently national statistics were only collected for incidence and mortality. This is the number of people who developed a cancer and the number of people who died from it. They do not take into account the treatments that people have had. What information there is about this will have come from studies and these have produced variable results. This may be because of the way that people were selected for the studies.

But in the research that I have looked at, it seems that about one third to just under a half of all of the study participants had a good enough response to chemotherapy for the cancer in the liver to be removed. However in some studies not everyone went on to have liver surgery. This was for various reasons, but often it was because other health problems developed which meant that an operation was not feasible.

With regards to your young sister, most of the professionals who work with young people suggest that it is better to keep them informed. This is because young people pick up on the fact that something is wrong. It is not always necessary to go into details, but it is important that they feel able to ask questions. These questions should be answered honestly. I can understand that this will be hard, because your family will also have to deal with your little sister’s grief as well as their own. There is not any easy way to break bad news and whatever way it is done she is likely to be upset. The charity Macmillan Cancer Support has some information about talking to children (this includes teenagers) on their website.

This time of uncertainty must be very difficult. Many people tell us that once all the results are available and a treatment plan is in place that they feel less at sea. So hopefully it won’t take too long to work out a treatment plan for your mum.

I hope that this reply helps a little. If you have any other questions please do contact us again. If you would like to telephone our freephone number is 0808 8004040. We are here from Monday to Friday between the hours of 9am to 5pm.

Kind regards,

Jean

Hi I am so sorry that you are in this situation it is very difficult to get your head round any cancer diagnosis. I too was diagnosed 2014 with bowel cancer, had a stoma done as was difficult going for a poo then I had chemo to try and shrink the tumour, which lucky enough it did, I had a bowel resection july 2015 which was not easy but if it would remove the tumour then I was willing to do anything to survive. I have never wanted to know my survival rate as they can only go on statistics. Once she has her treatment plan in place you will all feel better knowing what can be done, try not to panic too much and please do not google as most of that information is out of date. Your 14 year old sister will know something is up and until you have the full information I am not sure hoe much information you should give her, When you go for your consultation write questions before hand and make sure someone is able to go with your mum as I found that I never remembered everything they told me. Sending you best wishes for the coming weeks. X Susan

Thank you so much for your kind and lovely response. We are attending our local Maggies Centre on Monday for support. My mother who is a nurse also hasn't been coping well obviously and is preparing ourselves for the worst. We all know that we dont know what the future holds or what response her body will have when she begins chemo but I have faith and hope that she can be strong enough to battle as much as she can.

I spoke with my younger sister broaching the subject that our mum would be very ill for a while during taking her 'medicine' but we havent been able to tell her that she has cancer as she is very sensitive and this would devastate her. I feel guilty carrying on with every day normal tasks..going to work and seeing friends as I feel I need to be with my mum as much as I can while we still have her and not being with her as much as I can fills me with so much guilt.

Reading others stories on the site has given me hope and also a kind of reassurance that we are not alone in what is happening with our mum, I hope and pray your son can also continue with his battle 35 is such a young age only 4 yrs older than myself and must be very difficult for you all to see, and you are rite it is indeed like waking up every morning with the nightmare hanging over you all.

Take care and god bless xxx 

Thank you for your kind and lovely message Susan, I know it is still very early days until we have her treatment plan in place. My mum doesnt want to know how advanced things are and I dont blame her.

You've been through so much yourself and still seem so strong and positive and people like yourself give me so much reassurance that we are not alone in this. We have told our young sister that our mum is sick and she will be having treatment which is going to make her very ill but not telling her the extent or that our mum has cancer as she is very sensitive and couldnt cope with this news. 

Thank you again for your advice.

Take care xxx