any encouragement, options, suggestions?

cindysuetoyou

Hello.

I have a 26 year old son who is battling brain cancer and that's why I know about this site. However, I am posting in this category because I have a friend whose daughter is fighting osteosarcoma and she is really struggling right now. She is 15 and was diagnosed about 2 years ago. She started her treatments by having the limb salvage surgery for her arm. The drs basically amputated her shoulder. She also went through a long chemo treatment period and was extremely sick the entire time. The drs also operated on her lungs and removed several suspicious spots. Some of the spots were scar tissue and some were cancer spots. The cancer spots were determined to be "dead" from the chemo, but the drs wanted to watch her lungs carefully. After the chemo and the surgery, she went about 10 months of feeling good. Then just as she was approaching the one year mark, they did a CAT scan and found spots in her lungs again.They weren't sure what the spots were, and they operated on her lungs again and removed them. The drs felt that the spots they removed were cancer but apparently they were not totally sure if they were active or not. That was in August of this year. The doctors said that they could not operate any more because her lungs were so full of scar tissue. They waited--don't know why--until now (Dec 2011) and did another CAT scan and said that now there is no doubt that the cancer has returned and is in the back of her lungs, which is causing her back pain. Some of this I am hearing third hand, so I don't know why the drs let her go from August to now without doing anything. I think they waited because they were not 100% sure that the spots they found during the August surgery were active cancer tumors. But now they are sure.

So the latest is that the drs don't know what to do for her. It doesn't sound like the drs feel that chemo is an option since the tumor returned after the chemo treatments. They are talking about removing her lung. The family is distraught. They are willing to do whatever it takes to save their daughter's life, but they haven't been offered many options or much encouragement. I don't know anything about this type of cancer. Do any of you have any words of encouragement or ideas about treatment options? Can you beat this type of cancer if you have several recurrences in the lungs? I would so appreciate being able to share any words of hope for this girl and for her family. I'm afraid that they are going to give up the battle and are not going to be aggressive about searching for other options. They are so worn down by their terrible ordeal.

Thank you,
Cindy
(PS When I previewed this post, it showed the date as Dec. 31, 1969....I have no idea why. Should be Dec. 30, 2011. I am not able to correct the date...it's in the forum heading.)