PLEASE HELP ANSWER QUESTION

Donnanva

Gary, my husband, has stage 3A nsclc. He finished 35 days of radiation treatments and 8 rounds of chemo with Carboplatin, Taxol and Avastin. He just began his second batch of chemo treatments with no radiation this time. He had a PET scan before he started treatment, and just had his second PET scan to see how it's progressing.

He said his primary tumor in the right lung is now 50% smaller and that he didn't know when it would start growing again. I said, "WHEN?! I thought the hope was that it would go away eventually!" But he said that it ALWAYS grows back. Have any of you ever heard of such a thing???

Please answer if you know anything about this at all.

PS. The first scan showed a cavity in his left lung but this time it has changed and he will know if it's cancer after he reads the official PET scan report. He's supposed to call us today. If it IS cancer, that means he has stage 4 cancer. Please, anybody, help. I don't know how everyone goes through this and stays sane. You guys must have a tremendous strength to get through this.

I talked to some of you when it was first dx'd. I told you how just two weeks before he was dx'd I found out he is deeply involved with another woman and has been for years. For our whole 20 years of marraige I knew he was messing around and just tried to ignore it. I've always been able to compartmentalize Parts of myself and that is what I did with that information. But it came to light that for years he's been pretending to go to work and instead taking this woman out. He's taken whole vacations yet pretended to go to work. I found he's been giving her a LOT of money every month while telling me we were broke. You probably wonder how I could have missed it. He gets 5 weeks of vacation a year plus another week for optionals and would always tell me he didn't know how many weeks of vacation he had and just blow the conversation off. Probably sub-consciencely I did not want to know what I already knew.

Thanks for listening. Donna

He will not admit it even with all the proof I have.

nanaof7

drs are not God
I have stage 4 NSCL mets to the brain, I had chemo radiation and surgery for the lung, when I when back for my check ups I asked my onc " if my cancer comes back what can we do ? he said if it comes back there is nothing we can do " I have not been back to that dr. since I got a second opinion and she told me if it comes back we will treat where ever it comes back to (brain liver kidney lung )well it did come back 3 turmors in my brain,she did WBR and told me if I did well with that we would try tarceva, well we did and now my last MRI showed only 1 tumor and it is 1/3 the size it started. so my opinion is just keep trying till you find a dr. with the right answers. as for the cheating husband, dump him if he is so involved with her let her deal with the ugliness of cancer, when things get bad she probably wont want him. no one deserves to get cheated on I know I have been there the best thing I did was get rid of him and I have a husband that will be with me till the end good luck to you

Dapsterd

Anything goes
My Onc told me he has seen everything, so anything goes and anything can happen with this cancer, he makes no prognosis.

I would say you either step in with both feet to help your husband, or have him get help elsewhere and you stay just on the outside. It sounds like this is what you would wish to do anyway. What would you do if he did not have cancer? Maybe proceed in that direction.

It is a very difficult situation, and I wish you all the wisdom you can find.

ps, I am pursuing a 2nd opinion because new hospital says they can operate it all out, whereas the 1st said no way because I am IIIB, but new hospital says IIIA. The tumor has shrunk about 60% and lymph nodes will be biopsy-ed tuesday coming.

Dave

Concerned Daughter

Please answer if you know
Please answer if you know anything about this at all.

PS. The first scan showed a cavity in his left lung but this time it has changed and he will know if it's cancer after he reads the official PET scan report. He's supposed to call us today. If it IS cancer, that means he has stage 4 cancer. Please, anybody, help. I don't know how everyone goes through this and stays sane. You guys must have a tremendous strength to get through this.

Donnava,
I hope this is you question: on a PET scan cancer "glows" the cancer whats all the sugar in your body so in affect the doctor will se the glow. From that they then have the size of the tumors and can use CT scan afterwards. I only am familiar with stage three cancer in lung lobe cancer in lymph nodes in that same lobe and cancer found on lymph nodes on the branch that connects the right and left lobe. Then you have to break it down to the large cell, small cell stuff I'm not to good with that stuff I thought Stage Four was when the cancer cells jumps to another organ, sorry not sure.

Everything Else: Continue to compartmentalize and protect yourself. Find out where the money is and open up your own bank account in your own name ensure all insurance documents are up to date with YOUR information. You will never get him to admit so leave it alone for your own sanity at the very least. I will hope for peace for you be strong you seem like you already are.