Living with Colorectal Cancer

In February 2009, my sisters husband was diagnosed with colon cancer, sadly his doctor misdiagnosed his condition in January as Hemorrhoids, as he was bleeding from the bowel. Due to this misdiagnosis the tumor had grown considerably, by the time he was able to get in to see a surgeon another 3 weeks had passed and his tumor was quite large. The surgeon he was referred to told him that he could not operate straight away as he was going overseas for a few weeks, told my brother-in -law he should book into have chemo and radio therapy and he would operate when he got back. My brother-in-law trusting the surgeon agreed to wait and do the chemo and radio treatment.

The problem was that my brother-in-law was not given priority at the hosipital and had to wait for nearly three weeks before his treatment started. In the meantime his tumor was growing. By the time he finished his treatment of chemo and radio (which took around 3 weeks), the surgeon was back and sent him off for more scans to see if the tumor had shrunk. Sadly months down the track the scans revealed that the tumor had actually spread to his liver and his lungs.

The surgeon actually rang my brother-in-law at home and told him over the phone, he did not even have the decency to arrange to have him come to the surgery to tell him. The surgeon told him that because it had spread he would not go ahead and remove the tumor and that more chemo or radio treatment was not going to help. During the course of this treatment, my brother-in-law was suffering from intense pain and it took many visits to his GP to get pain relief, which was not acheived till he visited the hospital where they actually started to give him high doses of morphine to control the pain. Which he still is on as the pain has spread to other areas of his body, which he was told could be a side effect of the radio therapy.

Another thing my brother-in-law only found out recently after being admitted to hospital with severe pain and swelling in his leg, was that the chemo therapy can cause thrombosis. Since being told that his condition was incurable, back in July it is now 20th Sept, my sister has been trying alternative therapy, she has been very patiently juicing fresh fruit and vegetable. As she has been reading a lot about other cancer patients who claim they were cured by alternative treatments.

She has purchased many cd’s and books on the subject, she is also getting him to try oxygen therapy, and B17, (almonds kernals) asparagus juices, you name it she is trying everything to see if it will help. Before he was admitted to hospital with thrombosis, he said that he was actually starting to feel a little bit better. He was in hospital for three days before being sent home with drugs to inject himself to try to dissolve the blood clot, which he was also told that he would have to do for the rest of his life.

That was about a week ago he is know back in hospital as he is continually vomiting, I haven’t heard as yet how he is I will keep you posted.