Breast Cancer in the elderly?

My 81 year old mother, has been diagnosed with stage 0, estrogen sensitive breast cancer. She is having a lumpectomy this Thursday, and will follow up with radiation.

How long after the surgery, do they generally begin radiation?

What special things, can I do to make things easier for her during her treatments and recovery?

Thank you everyone, for all your help :)

Generally they let you heal up before they start the radiation. You need to get some good lotion for her to put on the radiated area right after treatments. BaseGlaxal is one but there are others, some people like pure Aloe Vera lotion. As the skin gets more fragile with age I would guess that this would particularly important for her.

The other thing is that toward the end of the treatments she will possibly be tired. Then some extra help with shopping, cleaning would be appreciated.

Find out what you can put on her skin that gets radiated and use it. Stay with her in the waiting room. The radiation treatment is fast. Talk with her and just be a listening ear when she needs that. I don't think radiation will be all that long after. They may want the skin to heal some before they start.

You are doing the best thing right now and that"s caring and making the effort to find out what your mother needs.
Talk to her doctors so you know what's going on. Make her as comfortable as possible and be patient when she's irritable and not articulate. Make sure she eats and don't let yourself get burned out. Stuff happens in life and that's why we have families. Good luck.

CANCER: On the news it was found that Swedish scientists found that human breast milks kills cancer in a petri dish. People who drink it have had some success in fighting off cancer.

You need a prescription and it's not the cheapest thing to obtain, but it works.

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/2006...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/418769...