Teen battling cancer returns to Gladstone as focus shifts

ROCHELLE Luders shares the latest on her son Mitchell's cancer treatment:

WE arrived home last night and Mitchell is very happy to be back in his own room and is loving being back amongst his favourite things again.

We are slowly sorting through the mountain of gear that we bought back from Brisbane and getting used to our new routine of having a nurse visit most days to make sure Mitchell is okay, and to make any adjustments to his medications etc if necessary.

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For now he is happy and pain free and we have all of us at home while Dylan is on a break from uni and Chelsea is on school holidays, and it's just nice to be altogether for awhile.

These past two weeks have been easily the hardest few weeks in our lives ever as we make difficult decisions regarding future treatments and also get introduced to the world of palliative care.

We have felt our lives spiralling out of control and although we still intend to put a treatment plan in place for Mitchell, our focus is now changed.

We are only considering treatments that can be done at home and with minimal side effects to ensure that Mitchell stays out of hospital and can just enjoy being a normal teenager.

New treatments are becoming available all the time and our hope is that we can get some improvement or at least keep Mitchell's cancer stable until more options become available.

He has had a great response from his recent radiation, with the tumour shrinking and clearing the entire blockage and shrinking away from major organs, which is good news, and he is slowly improving and getting closer to heading home and we are all excited about that.

We don't know what the future holds but Mitchell is strong and has plenty of fight, so we are not giving up but we will continue to make the most of every day.