Hi laura. Welcome to the forum and I'm sorry to hear about your grandmother's situation.

Apart from the nurses (who work UK office hours) I don't think anyone here is a doctor. We're mainly cancer patients/survivors and their carers.  I'm definitely not a doctor.

It seems to me that there are two separate risks.The first and most immediate risk is that of the surgery itself.  I would want to know what it is about her case that makes her risk so high, and what can be done in a reasonable time scale to reduce the risk.  For instance, if she has high blood pressure can her GP prescribe a cocktail of medications to bring it down? If she is overweight, would a crash diet for a month reduce her risk appreciably? Or is there some other reasonable intervention that might be done to reduce the risk of undergoing surgery?

Then there is the risk of the cancer going untreated, assuming surgery is the best option. How long might she be expected to live without the surgery?  And if the surgery is successful and she survives the op, how long might she live then?

Without knowing the answers to these questions, it's difficult to see a way forward.  If it were me, and the surgery had a 9 in 10 chance of curing me, but I had a 1 in 10 chance of dying during the procedure, then I'd want to throw the dice and go for it.  On the other hand, if the surgery was only going to make the difference between living 12 or 18 months, then I'd probably decide it wasn't worth the risk. 

I'm sorry if you find this cold-blooded and analytical, but I'm a computer scientist and my brain works on cold hard logic. I think you need to go back to the anaesthetists (who make the decisions about whether someone is fit for surgery) and the oncologists to find out as much information as they can give you.  Then it becomes a case of weighing up the conflicting risks and making a decision. 

Thank you so much for your reply!

Her appointment yesterday was to go on an ‘exercise bike’. It was after this that the anaesthetist went on to tell us that my grandma had been categorised as extremely high risk (simply because her heart struggled to cope with the test).

She was very honest with us and explained that alongside the risk of mortality, the operation would not prolong her life, she would most definitely need a colostomy bag and it’s unlikely that her quality of life would ever be the same.

To me it’s a lose lose situation but my grandma seems to have made her mind up that she doesn’t want to go through with the operation (she told us that she would prefer to enjoy what life she has left), so I just want some idea of what happens now. The anaesthetist couldn’t really give us any sort of timescale as she doesn’t know how fast the tumour is growing.

We have such a close relationship (I see her every day) and I just can’t bare the thought of her deteriorating. 

Hi laura

I'm really sorry that your gran finds herself in this situation. 

I think that if I were in a similar way then I would refuse surgery, too. However, I think my next step would be to enquire about hospice and end of life care, to ensure that the end is as painless and trouble free as possible. I've actually no idea how one goes about that, but I think if you start a new thread then someone here will be able to give you their experiences.

All the best.