It is never too early to inquire about palliative care. It is symptom management care, not to be confused with end-of-life care. You can ask for or be referred for a palliative care consult at any time of the cancer journey from diagnosis on.

See this article from Mayo Clinic

Mayo Clinic Q and A: Palliative care — improving quality of life during a serious illness http://mayocl.in/2rd9Y6K

I am glad you are asking these questions because I did not understand this either, when I was trying to help my mother. I am glad Colleen Young is here to help clarify for you. In our case, the oncologist's office told us who to contact. They had a whole palliative team and there was one main nurse practitioner that would come out to the house. It really was helpful. With the palliative care, Mom could still receive all kinds of medical treatment including hospitalization if necessary. The nurse would stop by and it actually prevented Mom from having to go for office visits. For example, one time she had what seemed like a sort of minor skin rash. The nurse just happened to come by and tell us that those kinds of things can become more serious when a person is undergoing chemo. She prescribed medicine that would immediately help and we got it from a pharmacy the same day. She could just send prescriptions to a local pharmacy right on her phone. She also had other people on her team that she could send over -- like social workers, and I am not sure what else. During palliative care, my mom also had some personal help like people to help her shower and such. I think that was from the palliative team, but it may have been our local agency on aging. That is something else you could look into. The local agency on aging sent people to do handyman work and things like that, too.

I hope you can have a palliative nurse come to your home. I just thought it made Mom's life better by reducing the amount of times she had to drive in to doctors' offices and wait in waiting rooms and such. If not, I think they will still be a big help. I now remember that the palliative team had dietitians, too, that helped her with that sort of thing. She got a lot of helpful pointers, like Colleen Young told you, to just generally make her life a more pleasant and comfortable. If you have any questions about my experiences, don't hesitate to ask. I am sure I am forgetting some things.

God bless you