Metastatic Liver Cancer

Today my heart is broken. Not for the first time, and probably not the last, but that does not make it any easier. The man I love most in the world – my hero, protector, that tall dark and handsome guy who has been my benchmark for the perfect man ever since I was a child, namely my dear old dad, has just been diagnosed with metastatic liver cancer.

To say I am beside myself is an understatement. Yet that also seems so shallow and selfish, to be thinking about myself when it is not me who is in physical agony and facing a certain outcome, at a date unknown but never far enough away in the future. Time is an unknown quantity and at no time in my memory has it seemed so precious.

Metastatic liver cancer is another name for secondary liver cancer. It means that the main (or primary) origin of the cancer is somewhere else, but the cancer has grown and spread to the liver. Unfortunately the prognosis for secondary liver cancer is just about the worst that you can get. For my dad, aged 68, a 6ft man whose weight has fallen to just over 10 stone, things are not looking good.

The tests are still ongoing to find the primary source of cancer in my dad’s body. To me that seems irrelevant at this stage, but my understanding is that only when the whole picture is known by the doctors can a decision on a suitable course of treatment/palliative care be undertaken.

My dad hasn’t been feeling well for a few months. 5 months ago, in January, he started complaining of a sore shoulder, then it was a sore back, then a nauseous sick feeling and loss of appetite (resulting in fairly rapid weight loss), but amazingly during all of this my dad’s typical explanation was one of the following: pulled ligament, a touch of flu, feeling run down, change in the weather. Just 4 days ago he called to see me and could barely walk himself back to his car, and insisted he was just feeling a little tired. How he made it home I will never know.

A doctor’s appointment at my mum’s insistence around 2 weeks ago involved blood tests which then resulted in an appointment with a consultant at the hospital yesterday. My dad was then admitted on the spot for more tests, and also because at that point he was unable to move unassisted (just pulled my back says he. If only).

Unfortunately any sort of serious pain relief has not been forthcoming because of the impact it could have on the unfinished tests. So my dad is on paracetamol. Hello??? OMFG. I mean it hardly works for a toothache, but cancer???? Pleeeeease can somebody help make this better but I know that it’s just going to get worse.

Tonight I told my dad how much I love him. We are not a very demonstrative family and while the unconditional love my parents have for us and vice versa has never been in doubt, it has largely gone unspoken. My dad and I cried and cried. He says he is fortunate that he will have a chance to put his affairs in order. I am just happy and honoured to call him my father, and will treasure every future second I get to spend with him.

Tell your loved ones how you feel about them before it is too late. Show them how much you love them. I am grateful to have had the chance.

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