re: suggestions anyone - cancer patient

[Guest guest]

Are,

 

Do you have any info available on-line re:your cancer tx? It seems I'm getting a

rash of cancer px lately.

 

Everyone: the patient I described 3 days ago has deteriorated significantly in

that time: apparently the lining of the intestines, destroyed during the chemo,

hasn't regenerated so the food she's getting via stomach tube isn't doing much

good; they tried a partially digested mix today, it made the abdominal cramps

much worse. Also, the staph infection she got in the hospital appears to be

regrouping and affecting her throat and lungs - they're expecting another onset

of pneumonia, she's gurgling on in-breath, and speaking is becoming very

difficult, as is taking anything by mouth, she has aspirated fluids several

times. UTI is not abating. She's on a morphine pump for the pain, but has said

she doesn't want more treatment except acupuncture. She was in a drug-induced

sleep state today, didn't even wake when I treated her. Skin is dusky, lips

slightly cyanotic, tips of toes slightly blue as well. Tongue not visible,

retracted. Pulses all fast, tiny, soft, kidney pulses deep, lung and heart

floating and the irregularity has disappeared.

 

The MDs are pretty much at road's end; has anyone treated someone this sick? I

am uncertain whether to encourage her partner to push the MDs to cooperate with

naturopathic and/or TCM medicinals - it should be possible in this hospital as

both I and a naturopath have hospital privileges and the western staff mostly

supports " alternative " medicine. She's a friend as well as a patient and she

would be open to herbal medicines (as a rule responds much better to them than

pharmaceuticals) but I don't want to encourage extending her suffering longer if

it's not reasonable to believe it might turn things around. Does anyone have

experience or even educated opinions? The severity of her case is far beyond

anything I've ever treated.

 

Thanks

 

Deb Marshall

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Ann, Cara, thanks for your suggestions.

 

Dana died last night. I think she decided she'd had enough and made the most of

an opportunity her body presented. No one in the hospital saw signs of impending

death until half an hour before she died. I think the tinyness and inclination

towards floating in the pulses I saw yesterday were probably a bigger indication

than I realized, but this is what she wanted.

 

I'll put your suggestions into my future-reference folder - I'm sure it'll come

up again. Next time, maybe, we can deal with it sooner.

 

---Deb