Newly Diagnosed with Metastasis--HELP

I need some words of wisdom and hope ... my husband's MRI, CT scan, and ultrasound show a 14x14x10 cm presumable renal cell carcinoma, extensive metastatic disease in right and left liver lobes, metastasis in T11 and T12 spine, metastasis in 4+ nodules in the lungs, and suspicious tumor thrombus in inferior vena cava. He meets with an oncology urologist next week and gets a biopsy of the lung nodules in a week or two. We are beside ourselves and emotions are out of control. Can anyone with some or all of these conditions please weigh in?
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Comments
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Hi andydebparker-
I'm so sorry you had to join us like this, but I'm glad you did. We know what you're going through and we're here for you if you have questions or just need to vent.
First piece of advice - bring a notepad or smartphone with you to your husband's doctor's visits, and use it to write down questions you have for your doctor and to write down the answers you get back. Information will be coming fast and furious, and you're only human and it will be hard to keep up with everything. So write it down so you can refer back to it.
Next - don't trust Dr. Google. The internet will show you a lot of misleading numbers and statistics. Take everything you find there with a grain of salt. There are plenty of advances made in new treatments for kidney cancer, and survival stats from just a few years ago will be out of date.
And thirdly - if you haven't already, consider signing up at the forum at smartpatients.com. It's another active message board where you might find more advice/perspective from people who are in a similar situation in terms of mets and spread. As you move forward with specific treatments, they could be a valuable resource.
This is awful news to learn and it's totally normal to be beside yourselves. Once the shock wears off, you're going to do great. We're with you.
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Thank you for the quick reply! My husband doesn't want to research info., just rely only on his doctors, but I know there are many options and opinions.
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Andydebparker so sorry about this news. Eug91 always has great advice. I agree with having some form of notes, you can record the conversation on your phone too if allowed. There's so much information and scary terms. We are here for you. There are so many people here and at smart patients who are living full hopeful lives even with advanced stages. God bless keep us updated.
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