Stage 4 lung cancer and chemo

katowe68 said:

Stage 4 Lung CA

Hi I have Stage 4 lung cancer and I am receiving Keytruda for treatment.  It has minimal side effects.  I am doing well.  As far as the fear of it all, I just pray and cry and cry and pray.  Some days I am strong and others not.  I suggest that you look at the smaller picture and take one day at a time.  Even though the doc said 2 years, he/she does not know.  I am going into my second year.  I can only hold on to God, that's all I have.  My thoughts and prayers are with you.

We know just what you mean. This really blindsided us. Not how we planned on spending our retirement. I am disabled also and this is a real strain but I'm doing it. We had some help from my daughter once but the newness wore off I guess. She lives 300 miles away. My Grandaughter who we raised is married to a career USAF guy. They got a humanitarian transfer closer to here then Texas but don't know how much she will be here to help either. She has a new baby 2months old now. She flew up and spent a week here. He has to report to his new assignment on Sept 30th so we'll see how that goes. We are going to try to make a trip to Walmart tomorrow. I lost both legs below the knee 10 years back and have a bad heart, have had surgery but outcome no good so it makes things difficult. I realize she is not herself but sometimes all the criticism gets to me but I try not to. We are doing our best. I don't believe we can get home help we are not on medicaid plus we are 3 miles inside a county that has no palliative care available. We have no family here all 300 miles away on the other side of the mountains. We don't want to move because all of our healthcare is here and have been with the same docs for over 20 years plus it is about double in the cost of living over near Seattle compared to here. Prayer and crying is it for us. If she is really bad she calls her sister who is also stage 4 different cancer started as breast had both removed along with lymphnodes and was in Remission but it reared it's ugly head again this time in her back so they talk and cry together.

jorola said:

Call the CSN number for help

They may be able to link you to services in your area that can help you. Call 1-800-227-2345 and they are there 24/7. They also have people who can just answer questions about cancer, treatment and a variety of cancer related topics. Please call. I hate to see you two struggle so.

OK will give them a shout and see what I can find out. We have to go to Walmart today and just hoping she feels good enough to do it. When You go out when you are on Chemo do you wear a mask and gloves when you were in public? I guess they call this the vadir stage or something like that when your immune system is at its lowest point 7-10 days after last Chemo treatment which she is 9 days today. Don't want to risk her getting an infection of some type. She wants to go to help because I don't know where stuff is and I'm in pretty bad health also. They put a pig valve in my heart 6 years ago and it leaks as bad as the old one because of calcificatioon where they had to sew it plus getting around on prosthetic legs is not the easiest. We just do what we can. Thanks for the reply.

jorola said:

A mask won't hurt nor antibacteria gel hand wash

Yes some people's immune systems are really affected by the chemo. My husband fortunately did well but my uncle did not when it came to that. It ceratinly can't hurt to take precautions but remember touching objects others have touched is a more common way to pick up something so yes either gloves or antibacterial sanitizer is something good to have. I truly hope CSN help line can link to some support because the both of you can really use it. Thinking of you both.

I am almost afraid to ask this but how is your husband doing. She is already at a point that she is going to ask them next time if this is the way she is going to feel for the rest of her life. If it is she is having her doubts about continuing. He already told her that without the treatment she would be gone in a matter of months, with the treatment 1 to 2 years or possibly longer. She has had a worse time with each treatment. This is 9 days now and she said she hates making me do the shopping which I have never done she has done it for 35 years and doesn't like making me go out in the heat and the smoke. I have COPD also and had a nodule removed from my right lung with Cyberknife but it was no biggie. I told her I would rather do this then not have her around, She is having a real problem accepting that.

jorola said:

My husband is alive and well

He is has been NED - no evidence of disease - for 3.5 years now. He was stage 3b squamous non small cell lung cancer. Initially he was given 8 months to live. After harsh chemo and radiation treatments, as he was 40 when diagnosed and otherwise strong and healthy, he is now cancer free. Will that last forever? Who knows? We just live life to the fullest every day and are thankful for every day we do have.

Well the doctor was real straight forward with us. He said there is no cure. She has small cell lung cancer he said the type you get from smoking. I don't know for sure how much Medicare will cover or what they will cover. We are at their mercy since I retired. We spent nearly all of our savings when I got sick in 2007 and lost both legs below the knee, plus paying $1500 a month to keep my wife insured after I turned 65 for 2 1/2 years. The rairoad found me a new job because they didn't want to chance me being an engineer anymore for fear I could get hurt so they found me a desk job that included driving about half of it. Funny they never thought twice about having me drive crews around but mostly I was at a desk, a dispatcher of the other vans most of the time. We have a good supplement also through the RR which picks up anything that Medicare approves but but only up to the amount that Medicare allows. Luckily here doctors accept Medicare as full payment. She couldn't get into anyplace like Cancer Treatments of America I've seen advertised, they don't accept what MC pays. But where we go is a highly rated Cancer Center here. I just don't understand why if some of these places have better ways of treating you they don't make it available to older people that have MC. I got off the subject there sorry. We are both just so screwed up over this. We both completely forgot our 35th anniversary day before yesterday

We'll find out something more by the end of the week hopefully. We told them she would try new treatments that they are testing if others fail. I don't know if Medicare has a cap on how long they will continue paying or not. The type of chemo she is on is cisplat/etoposide if anyone is familiar with that?