sweetcaroline
New User
Joined: 04 May 2006
Posts: 4
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 Posted: Fri May 05, 2006 12:09 am Post subject: small cell lung cancer beating the odds (so far) |
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Hi everyone! My Dad, aged 74, (who quit smoking 40 years ago) was diagnosed August 8, 2005 with SCLC extensive spread to liver, a lymph node, some hot spots on bone, and questionable spots in kidney. He
is beating the odds! They told him 30-90days with no treatment, then with treatment they gave him 6-9 months.
Well, here we are on month 9 and he is doing well. The chemo treatments (sorry don't know what kind) he has received every 28 days (or so) have wiped him out for about 5 days at first then it has progressively taken longer to get over the treatments (now he says it takes about 10 days). His symptoms are primarily feeling week, tired, worn out, not able to sleep well and hense he wakes in the morning with lots of flem that needs to be coughed up. But after those 10 days he feels better. The Chemo his doc has chosen has obviously worked but what I feel the main reason he is still with us is that he just is too busy to die. He loves his work, has a million projects on the back burner, and he has said from day one, "I'm not going to let this get me down, and I'm going to beat this". So...What a roller coaster of feelings it has been for all of us involved, and now that we are in month 9 we feel like winners! I have no idea if he'll be here tomorrow but we sure have had the time to say what has needed to be said and we are blessed to have been given that opportunity.
It has been very difficult to find survivors of this diagnosis past one year
or even past 9 months and I just wanted to tell the world that my Dad is
one of those that has won so far. It is really unbelievable given his
other history of health problems (pace maker, heart problems). I realize he could go in the night from a heart condition due to the bombardment on
the body from the chemo sessions but overall the quality of life for this man, given 9 sessions of chemo, has been pretty good. I expected much worse and quite frankly, I am still afraid of what future chemo sessions will do to him, but at least he has made it this far!
Thanks to all of you for sharing your stories. I couldn't be more proud of each of you, wether you are the one with the disease or are simply the loved one or caretaker. Dealing with such extreme emotion, physical pain, depression or whatever you've been dealt has got to be the equivalent of extreme suffering and yet within the suffering there has to
be a bit of joy that shines out from the dark cloud. I mean, hey, aren't we all lucky to have just made it? To have simply been born and beaten
out the billions of other potential egg/sperm combos that could have taken
our place here on earth!
Within the law of opposites we wouldn't know joy without suffering and light without darkness, etc..... blah blah blah.
But from my heart to all of you... a little bit of joy.
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winnymac
Regular
Joined: 19 Mar 2006
Posts: 42
Location: Salem, Oregon
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| Posted: Fri May 05, 2006 12:25 am Post subject: Re: small cell lung cancer beating the odds (so far) |
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Caroline,
It is really good to read your story. My dad is 78 and was diagnosed October of 2004. He had smoked for about 30 years but also had not for about the last 35 years. His cancer was caught early due to an xray just prior to a planned bypass surgery. That was subsequently cancelled but it gave him a bit of a jump on this disease. He had chemo and radiation and came through both great. He didn't mind the hair loss and he loved socializing, I think he actually enjoyed the treatments! However, in October of 2005 after getting a preliminary clean record on the lung, (they were preparing to do a follow up in a month), he had brain seizure and we found out that his cancer had mets to his brain. One tumor which was treated with radiation. This was much more dibilating. He is home now on hospice but in the last month has made improvements so he may come off hospice, we don't know yet, he hasn't gotten strong enough to return to the doctor. Watch out for the not eating problem, dad did great until after his last radiation and then stopped eating all but small small amounts for quite some time. That is what created his present weakness, he almost wasted away. He had been on a steroid and then weaned off. Once we got him back on that and off some other meds, he improved. Now he is making up for it and eating like crazy! Roller coaster? Oh yeah, we have been on that for quite sometime now, amazing the rate of the downhills. We are headed back up for now though and like you, we are appreciating the extra time to say what is needed and just enjoy each other.
Prayers to you and your family,
Linda |
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