Staging question

zeebee

My mom, 81 yo, has been diagnosed with stage 4 NSCLC (adenocarcinoma). It is in one lung and was found in a lymph node, so they believe it has spread, however they have done no further testing to see if and where it has spread. She has been hospitalized since June due to a lung infection (valley fever, the reason they even caught the cancer in the first place). Why does no one seem to want to know about metastasis? How can they stage it without knowing if it has spread? We feel that they aren’t interested in helping her because of her age. Can someone please help and let us know the usual protocol for this?