It was back to Weatherford today, and one of the patients we saw was the patient who wanted to try oleander extract to improve his chances of survival (from pancreatic cancer). Despite Dr. RP showing him an article showing that phase I trials of oleander had no effect on survival, the patient insisted on trying it, even though it would cost $1300 a month. Dr. RP said it was his choice what he chose to do. We later read online that oleander can be cardiotoxic, and Dr. RP said that if he ends up dying of a heart attack, well, he made his own choice.
We got a call from another patient we saw on Monday, a man with untreated colorectal cancer (his choice) who presented with vision changes and now has big-time nausea and vomiting. We suspected that he had brain mets and Dr. RP made plans to admit him to the hospital. As it turned out, he did have mets to the cerebellum, and Dr. RP later told him (I wasn't there to see it) that if he didn't get radiation treatments to shrink the brain mets, he'd have less than one month to life. Fortunately the patient was willing to give radiation a try.
We also had two separate bladder patients come in for follow-up to learn that their cancer has spread. One man had mets to his adrenal gland; it was inoperable, and 2nd round chemo was his best chance of longer survival. There was no talk of "how much time is left;" his wife was visibly numb and there was no way she was ready to hear how much time her husband had to live. The second patient (also a man) took the news bravely while his wife quietly cried and wiped her eyes. It was probably the worst news you can get. Both men endured aggressive chemotherapy for their bladder cancer in hopes of a cure, and now their disease has metastasized and who knows if 2nd round chemo will work. But the important thing is that they're not giving up yet.
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