I am trying to get a quick education on this disease to help make
sense of my Mother's condition and provide some hope for our family.
My Mother has a genetic kindney disease and began hemo dialysis approx
5 years ago.  She has done remarkably well, the "poster child" for how
to live on dialysis.  Last week she began to get weak, unable to walk
without help.  It got exponentionally worse each day but questions to
her about it were met with strong opposition.  Today she fell in the
bathroom and broke her upper femur, admitting finally that she had
breast cancer as well.  She has had it for slightly more than 5 years,
untreated.

She made a decision based on her desire to spend as long as she could
living a somewhat normal life.  It was an informed decision I believe,
however contrary to my personal desire to fight hard against anything
like that (I am very agressive with my health).  I believe it was a
brave thing and certainly a huge burden keeping it from us all.
Debate over whether this should be the course of action for others can
be held by others, but I would greatly appreciate some support and
information.

An oncologist will be consulting tomorrow (the hospital would be
remiss if they didn't consult with him, the cancer was obvious to them
when she went in to have a rod put in the femur).  My Mother has
agreed to allow me to sit in with her during the discussion, and I
would like to ask some intelligent questions.  My Mother is 74 years
old, has an irregularly shapped left breast at least 2x to 3x normal
size.  When lying down, the right brest "melts" into the chest while
the cancerous one sticks out with more form (though very irregular).
The past 5 weeks she has complained of back pain (not from strain) and
now weakness and some numbness in her legs) Here are some of the
questions I am thinking of asking.  I would appreciate your
suggestions for others, as well as any of your own answers to these.

1. Is it possible such a cancer is not malignant?  Is the test fairly
basic to determine this at this stage?
2. Understanding that my Mother is not interested in taking on
chemo-therapy and radiation, or perhaps even major surgery, is there
anything with light side effects that might help give her even a short
period of "normal time" at home?  I've heard interesting things about
Tamoxifen for instance.
3. If, by some miracle, the tumor is benign, could it still have
caused damage that can't easily be repared?

Aside from just asking where she stands right now, these are my only
questions so far.  I'm not interested in what might have been, but how
I can get my Mother home to live just a little longer (she wants this,
not just for my own pain avoidance) while having some reasonable
quality of life (walking even if by walker, able to eat and be
mentally aware.  I am assuming that this is the best one can ask for
after 5 years untreated.

Thank you to anyone who can understand the pain of losing a loved one
and might be able to help give me something positive to act on.  Many
good things were said today with my Mother and Dad, sister and me.  I
thank God for the opportunity to say and hear those things, and help
lift the awful burden of that secret from her shoulders.  I would like
to do as much as I can now to help give her the best options I can,
because she really does deserve them!

xavernus