CHEMOTHERAPY - Did chemo kill my mother faster than the cancer?

by Elisa620 on Sat Jul 07, 2012 06:23 PM

My dear mother passed away Sept. 23, 2011 from bile duct cancer just shy of 7 months after diagnosis. She was just 67 years old and lived a very active and healthy life style. You never would have known she was even sick. She was complaining about an uncomfortable dull pain under her right rib cage. Her internal medicine doc said "it's probably just your gall bladder". He ordered a CT scan which showed it was much more serious than "just her gall bladder". She had stage IV cancer and told she had 4 to 6 months to live. She was initially told she had adenocarcinoma of unknown origin, and was told it was slow growing.

Four months later when she was so jaundice she was orange and was told it was cholangiocarcinoma. So, They had her on wrong chemo for 4 months (carboplatin and taxol) and then gemzar. After gemzar, she needed blood transfusion after blood transfusion, platelettes, and could barely stand up. How does a supposedly slow growing cancer turn an active pre-school teacher into a weak shell of the person she was in 5 months?

My question is did the chemo kill my mother sooner than if she had done nothing but palliative care? Why don't doctors tell patient's that the chemo won't help and may be more harmful than helpful?

I watched my mother suffer through so much and am angry that she could have been enjoying the short time she had left to live instead of enduring the horrible effects of chemo and the false hope that it would save her life.

Source: http://www.cancercompass.com/message-board/message/all,67035,0.htm