Hi everyone, I have been lurking until now as we knew my dad had cancer of the oesophagus but no more until today. Sadly it is stage 4 Adenocarcinoma which has spread to the liver and lymph nodes. They wish to start chemo in about 10 days which will be 4 hours at hospital for 2 drugs via IV once every 3 weeks and then tablets to take twice a day in between. Initially 6 cycles with a CT scan after 3 cycles to see what effect it is having. Dad had a stent put in last Thursday and he been in a lot of pain every since. He's hardly eaten, lost a lot of weight (over about a 2 month period, not just because of the stent) and I'm really scared that this is not a good starting point for chemo. They have done another swallow test today just and confirmed the stent is fine, it's just having to "get used to it"!! Got a lot more pain relief now and anti sickness (all in liquid form).
My dad is 73 and was fine until he felt a blockage in his windpipe a couple of months ago. Totally devastating and frankly googling doesn't help!
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beakerange
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I am so sorry. This is such a brutal cancer as it takes away the very thing your body needs to sustain itself - nutrition. I have not had a stent fitted so I have no idea what it feels like but must be very uncomfortable.
I hope and pray he responds well to the chemo. Weight loss affects most OC patients and hopefully as the tumour shrinks he will be able to eat better. During my radiation I had 7 weeks of living purely on shakes (yuck) and I have only been able to eat normally for 2 months out of 10 months (mostly soft food diet) and I know of one person who did not real food for almost a year (she was put on a feeding tube) but somehow you get through it. Please tell him not to give up.
Blossomstix
Sorry to hear this news. Stents can indeed be uncomfortable, and it will depend on where the tumour is as to exactly how it feels. People's reactions to chemo do vary enormously, but the chemo can make things more bearable, so it is worth trying. I hope the pain relief and anti-sickness medication gets adjusted to the right level.
As well as all the medical treatment, it is a big thing to come to terms with, and I send our very best wishes.
Keep positive . I started to eat alot better once chemo started as i felt snacking helped with the sickness. I ate lots of home made soup. Crackers and cheese and fruit smoothies. I managed to put on weight which was good for the op if he is offered it later. There are many people who find the chemo shrinks or makes the cancer disappear. Good Luck.
My husband Rick was diagnosed October 1st 2015..we were in SHOCK!!! He had rotary cuff surgery on his shoulder the end of June last year and right after that he started to notice a problem with food feeling stuck when he was eating and always wanted to drink water to help get it down so we went for a follow up with the surgeon who did his shoulder and mentioned about the swallowing we thought maybe they nicked something as the breathing tube went down but he said no his symptoms were unrelated to his surgery. We then had him booked for a ENT doc and he couldn't find anything he sent I'm for a barium swallow and then a endoscopy which then found the tumour at the base of his esopagus near the stomach, Rick never had heartburn as a symptom but they said he had silent reflex which is sad because you don't get symptoms till the tumour gets large enough to cause the swallowing problem, with this being a very aggressive cancer by then it has spread and unfortunately his spread to the abdomen which makes him automatically stage 4 because of that. He has had 10 radiation treatments (which was really hard on him and he lost so much weight) and started chemo Dec 8th and he goes every 3 weeks for treatment so has had 6 so far. He is tolerating the chemo so far which is good because it's very hard on your body and we don't know how long he will have to take it they do scans every 3 months and the last one show it was shrinking so we we're happy. Unfortunely after 7 chemo treatments scans showed progression of the cancer to more Lympe nodes and a spot in his spine. The second chemo was really hard on him. Rick passed away Sept 14 2016 from this terrible beast of a cancer Andencarinoma it is very aggressive and for Rickmit was silent rifles so he had no symptoms of the disease till the difficulty swallowing. So sad. Please feel free to message me and if I can help in anyway I'm here. God bLess.
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