I'm writing on behalf of my mother who had bowel cancer approximately three years ago.
My mother had part of her bowel removed and then had radiotherapy over a course of about five weeks and she now has a colostomy bag.
Approximately a year later she started to get extreme pains in her groin on one side, her leg was very swollen and she had a very large lump in her groin.
We kept visiting the doctors where we were told that she should just take painkillers and for piece of mind that he would send her for a scan.
The doctor said that he couldn't feel any swelling round her glands although this lump to me was exactly on her gland area - just on or very near to the knicker line.
She went for a scan and constantly chased up the results, which took six months to come through.
This lump feels like a large elongated egg. We since found that this was cancer again and that it was in her lymph glands.
She was given a 12-week course of chemotherapy to try reduce the tumour.
Her treatment ended approximately two weeks ago but she is still waking up in the early hours of the morning in extreme pain – the lump appears to have reduced slightly, but the swelling on her leg is still there – nearly twice the size of her other leg.
We are awaiting a scan to see if the treatment has worked at all, but meanwhile my mum is worrying so much that because of the pain it hasn't worked at all.
Because of the waiting time for scans to come through and then having to wait for the results I am wondering if you can advise on this question.
Is it normal to still feel pain after chemotherapy in this area even if it has been reduced? It was suggested that my mum had deep vein thrombosis (DVT) but wasn't treated for it.
She does wear a support tight on this leg - it is just a half-leg support tight.
I am very sorry to hear of your mother's condition.
Without knowing her case I cannot be too diagnostic here but obviously there is some considerable cause for concern and one would have to be very guarded about her chances of coming through her illness now.
To answer your specific question, yes it is common to still feel symptoms such as pain and numbness following chemotherapy, and I suspect her leg swelling is entirely due to the affected glands blocking the normal flow of lymphatic fluid through her leg.
This is normally collected and drained by our lymph glands, and if only one leg is affected this is almost certainly what is going on.
This can be very tricky to treat effectively, but support stockings sometimes help as may advice from someone known as a lymphoedema nurse, often linked with the Macmillan nurses.
Ask your doctor for details about these.
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