Please help...Questions about my grandpa

Hi Johnny;

Wendy is giving great advise related to pain management and possible hospice care for your grandpa, based upon what is going on with him right now.

I might add that when my father-in-law was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer in his 80's a few years ago the docs suggested "palliative care" (which means do conservative things to make him comfortable and to give him a high quality of life for the rest of his days). They all agreed that since the disease was not cureable, why put him through very taxing treatments like chemo or more surgery. But what they did add to his care plan was good pain management, psychological/spiritual counseling so that he did not slip into a depression, radiation aimed at only the tumor area to make it shrink so that he could have more time here on Earth and nutritional support so that he was made stronger to help him maintain weight and assist his immune system to stave off addtional cancer sites.

One of the most important things we all needed to do was to give him an outlet to talk, be heard and not avoid discussing anything he wanted to know or say. Many times in our parents' and grandparents' generations there seems to be a "no talk rule" about cancer. The family and friends all talk about the poor patient but no one thinks the person with cancer wants to talk about their concerns/fears or that if the cancer situation is brought up to the person with cancer then they will will be made to feel worse. Believe me, havng watched my grandad and my father-in-law go through the end of their lives with this disease they really needed smeone to talk to that was willing to just listen to them and not try to make everything O.K.

It sounds like you are very close to your grandpa, go see him, talk to him about your love for him, discuss what he has taught you and what memories are most important in how he has helped shape your life and then turn the tables and let him open up a bit. Let him feel safe in your love and support.

Your friend,
Deb

Hi,
I'm very sorry to hear about the quick recurrence and spread after your grandfather's surgery. The most important thing is for him to have peace and comfort. There must be aggressive treatment of pain, he shouldn't have to suffer from that. Most hospitals have something known as 'pain management', a team of experts. There are many different ways to treat pain these days.

I wish I could give more helpful or hopeful info but I'm afraid it sounds like the doctors don't feel your grandfather is fit enough for aggressive treatments like chemo or more surgery. Have any of the doctors mentioned hospice care? This is for when a person is not going to get more curative treatments but needs special care, leading to end-of-life care. It can be of tremendous help. Most times hospice workers come to the house (in the US). Rarely, it means someone can stay at a special care institution that focuses on their comfort, not cure.

Please have a look at WebCafe's pages on metastatic cancer and end of life issues, under this section:
blcwebcafe.org/metatcc.asp

hihi...i found this site can help me understand more about bladder cancer...which very unlucky that my grandpa has....he's around 70 years old right now..and has T3 bladder cancer, the cancer is about 5cm in diameter......in july 26th he had a bladder remove surgery....now two month later....when he went back for a CT check up...the doctors found more cancer in his lower pelvis area.....the doc told me there's one around 5X6 cm... and basiclly the doc is saying that he's too weak to have an other surgery right now..and there's very littler they can do ....but he's in great pain everyday...i don't want to see him suffer like this...and nothing i can do...i did a lot of reseach on the interenet about bladder cancer...but i can't really find a better way to treat this...can someone please help me out here....any one had the expericence before or someone it's really professional in this area....please....thanks a lot... god bless everybody...