[email hidden] said...
Quoted message said:Second, what do you think could cause this diarrhea? If it is cancer, what other possible symptoms
should we be checking?
Let's just assume for the moment that it's not cancer, because I've got a couple of questions for
your mother:
Is there any sign of blood in the stools?
If there is, your mother should get herself to a doctor for a colonoscopy because she might have
ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease, both of which are inflammatory bowel diseases. Neither of
these can be cured, but they are both treatable and there are plenty of people of all ages living
pretty nearly normal lives who just take some medication to alleviate the symptoms.
If there's no blood, it's possible that she may have irritable bowel syndrome. Again, this can be
treated; symptoms can be alleviated.
My other question concerns diet:
Is there something that your mother's eating or drinking that could be upsetting the normal balance
and causing the diarrhoeia? Is she (for example) 'addicted' to prunes? It's not as silly as it
sounds, BTW - an elderly lady I once knew was convinced that the dried fruit she was 'chain eating'
was doing her good because it was 'cleaning her insides'. Well yes, but she was practically mal-
nourished as well because everything was going straight through her.
As for what to say to your mother - it's a toughie and you may have to be rather unpleasantly blunt
with her. She's obviously worried, or she wouldn't have mentioned it to you, but burying her head in
the sand isn't going to make 'it' go away. If she has got a serious medical problem, it's not going
to make the slightest bit of difference whether she knows about it or not, so unless she really
*wants* a slow, painful death, she might just as well find out so she can take appropriate action.
Sooner or later your father is going to notice there's something wrong - and then *he's* not going
to be particularly pleased that your mother didn't trust him, preferring to tell you and then
telling you not to tell him. Well gosh, I can just imagine how impressed he's going to be. I've been
through something similar, BTW - my mother has recently had surgery for cancer and although her
husband (not my father) knew she was having "a cyst removed" he had no idea it was malignant. When
she finally told him, he was very upset, the more so since I'd put two and two together and come up
with the right diagnosis myself which he took to mean that mother had told me but not him.
I don't know - families, eh? Oo'd 'ave 'em?
