BC Test & Treatment for Patient with Anxiety

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icic14
icic14 Member Posts: 11
edited December 2020 in Caring for Someone with Breast cancer

Hi, I feel helpless. I am wondering if anybody ever had an experience in doing test, surgery, or treatment while having anxiety or mental disability?

My mom's 58 yo, she's not cooperative for test / treatment. Years ago she was diagnosed with anxiety, OCD, Schizophrenia (lil bit). The OCD & Schizo is not a problem now. But the anxiety makes her don't want to do anything she should do to be treated.

Her right breast has a palpable lump around 2 cm and there's redness on her breast skin that feels really dry. From the shape, it doesn't looks like a breast shape anymore. Around this month she has difficulty eating also coughs and vomits often when she's eating. This 2 weeks, we can hear her breathing makes a sound(?). We're really worried that she's not in an early stage cancer.

She did the ultrasound (with much force, it was almost a fail). Now yesterday with a much bigger rejection and forced she finally did the blood test. After that we tried to do CT Scan, but she didn't even want to change her clothes nor get into the CT Scan room. We tried to talk to her into it but she just gave us a solid "No, I want to go home" (with a full force rejection with her body). I went back to the Onco and nurse to ask for anything to help this situation, but they just said, "It needs to be done, it's the procedures in this hospital. If not, we can't do the biopsy (surgery)."

I thought weren't they supposed to help us find the solution to this? Like maybe gave her a sleeping pill or anesthetic. Otherwise this procedure or even the Chemo and Radioteraphy cannot be done.

Any help, idea, or solution will help us so much..

Thank you.

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  • MountainMia
    MountainMia Member Posts: 1,307
    edited December 2020

    Did you ask the oncologist if they can prescribe something for anxiety, to be able to finish diagnosis? Or is there a primary care doctor or psychiatrist that your mom works with who can do that? If they can't get an accurate diagnosis, they can't go on to treat her. If she has records of her mental health problems that would help them understand, perhaps you can furnish those.

    Good luck, and thanks for caring for your mom. It must be hard and stressful.

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  • AliceBastable
    AliceBastable Member Posts: 3,461
    edited December 2020

    Was the CT scan to check for metastatic spread? It's not otherwise part of the imaging for breast cancer because it doesn't show it clearly. I've had several CTs for other reasons and I've never had to remove any clothing. I've had to get down to underwear and a hospital gown for PET scans, but not CTs. Breast MRIs are sometimes used to pinpoint the location of the lump and for certain types of biopsies, and a patient just has a gown on the top half; perhaps that's what she had, or refused to have?

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  • moth
    moth Member Posts: 4,800
    edited December 2020

    I think you will need to get her psychiatrist involved and maybe she needs an increase in medication. The imaging team and even the oncology team wouldn't get involved to this extent imo. They prescribe imaging, diagnose and treat but if she's refusing, nobody can force her. Sometimes an oncologist would prescribe an anti anxiety medicine but I think with a history of psychiatric disease, they'd want the psychiatrist to deal with that aspect.

    Btw, CT is fast and quiet (unlike an mri). You can maybe find some videos on YouTube to help her anticipate what it's like.

    But bottom line, if it's as you suspect and it's cancer, or even metastatic cancer, will she cooperate with treatment?

    It's not easy. I really think she needs a psychiatry team first to get her into a healthier mental status.

    Hard position for you but there's only so much you can do. You're a good person to be helping your mom.


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  • icic14
    icic14 Member Posts: 11
    edited December 2020

    MountainMia I asked the Onco when my mom refused to do the blood test. The only response I get was, "Sorry, that's the procedure, we can't do anything about that." ☹️

    Alice Yes the Onco ordered to do blood test and CT scan to check for metastatic spread. Then told us to consult with rheumatologist about the result. We planned for biopsy next week, but it depends on that result. This is what I don't really understand. Why rheumatologist? And what kind of result do they want to know? Yes, she refused to just has a gown on the top half (or even wearing the gown).

    Moth Thank you, I agree with you. We'll ask for psychiatrist help if the Onco and Rheumatologist won't help. We tried to show her the process but it's a fail. I think it's kind of impossible for her to cooperate with treatment as long as she's still conscious. Unless the 0,001% miracle happens and she says yes. But we can't let her do as her wish because what if in the middle of chemo or radiotherapy she decided to quit. Then it'll let the cancer grows more ☹️

    I'm really confused deciding whether we need to stop the biopsy and treatment first. If we focus on her mental health first, we don't know how long it'll take for her to get better and have the will to do it. Plus, we don't know exactly what stage she's in. It's dangerous. ☹️

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