Hello,
I am new to this site. My mother was diagnosed with extensice stage SCLC in February 2006. She is 62. At the time of diagnosis she was having a lot of back pain. Come to find out it was SCLC met to her lower back. She was admitted to the hospital in March due to the extream pain. They put her on morphine and other pain drugs and started Chemo. They also started radiation to her back. She was able to go home about 2 weeks later. She finished Chemo in July. At that time we contacted hospice to help with her care. A nurse was coming in twice a week and an aid was coming in once a week. She seemed to be improving. The last week of October the hospice nurse called me. (I live 3 hour drive away) She was having trouble "tracking." Basically she was confused and disorientated. She went downhill fast in two weeks time. My brother brought her up to the city we live in to go into assisted living as she could not care for herself. We saw a radiation oncoligist her first day up here. The same day they did a MRI and saw multiple brain tumors. They started her on radiation treatments the same day. She has had 8 of 14 treatments. She is doing better. She HATES the assisted living facility. At the initial consultation with the radiation oncolgist, he stated that without radiation she would only have 1 - 2 months. He stated with radiation probably 9 - 12 months. She was in the room when we talked about this time line. Of course, she was so disorientated at the time, I am sure that she does not know anything about it. She wants to go back to her house as soon as possible. I need to figure out how and when to tell her about the prognosis. I think she needs to know so that she can do whatever she want to do in this short amount of time. I am sure that it will divisatate her as her primary oncoligist has always been positive with her. As a matter of fact, he stated at the begining of October that she was in remission.
Any comments or advise would be appreciated .
Russ
