husband has stage IV bc

17 years 10 months ago #497 by anne06
husband has stage IV bc was created by anne06
My husband was diagnosed with stage IV bladder CA in early February. The tumor is in the lower wall of his bladder and the cancer has moved to a lymph node close to one of his kidneys. He is about to start his third treatment of chemo GC, and is on large doses of narcotics (oral morphine) and a pile of other meds to deal with the enormous nerve pain he has been experiencing since February. The pain was under control for about 2 weeks - and this was incredible - but in the past week he's been  having breakthrough pain again, which is sometimes easy to treat with liquid morphine in addition to his usual morphine dose, and sometimes not at all easy to treat - and he can be suffering for 2 or more hours before the pain goes away. He just started acupuncture last week, and I wonder whether anyone has had experience with this kind of pain, and can offer any kind of advice as to what might work. It's possible the acupuncture is triggering the pain, but there is no way to know. Right after the acupuncture treatments, he feels really good and looks really good, but the pain breakthroughs have been occurring 24-30 hours later, it seems --- though this could be a coincidence.

He had a CT scan yesterday and the cancer has not progressed, and it seems to have decreased somewhat, so the plan is to continue with 4 more cycles. I just have no idea what to expect. We are taking it one day at a time but it is hard not to be overwhelmed and lose hope. We have 2 small children and are acting optimistic and doing all we can to keep our spirits up, but I have to admit I sometimes wonder what we're doing.

-Anne06

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