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BlueWolf6457

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BlueWolf6457 last won the day on January 15 2016

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    WISCONSIN
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    USA
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    My sister has lung cancer that was diagnosed in the fall of 2014. I am her live-in caretaker and have stage 4 breast cancer.

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  1. After a year of scans, tests, and other wastes of time a new Oncologist has informed us that what's been showing up in all those scans is a recurrence in the same lung. Of course, since they wasted a year testing her without giving any treatment, only a small portion of the left lung is left unaffected. The old Oncologist kept claiming she didn't know it was cancer. Wow! She is going to be starting chemo within the next two weeks. Possibly the Cisplatin again plus 2 more new chemo drugs. I need to try to talk him out of using the Cisplatin again because it was so hard on her last time that she needed Ritalin in order to "wake up" from severe chemo brain symptoms. So I will be using this section to update everyone and probably ask a ton of questions. Here we go again
  2. 1. Soft tissue mass left anteromedial chest and mediastinum extending from the parasternal area posterior laterally and involving the anterior chest wall surrounding the internal mammary chain on the left. Maximal transverse dimension is increased from 5.3 to 6.3 cm. 2. Stable 1.8 cm right upper lobe nodule with 2 very small right lower lobe nodules now seen in the 5 to 6 mm range measuring slightly larger. 3. Stable pericardial effusion. 4. Small left pleural effusion slightly increased.
  3. New development - my sister will be starting Opdivo infusions beginning around April 28th and will be getting them once every two weeks.
  4. Her cold is over and she has stopped coughing. The last CT was taken on the first day of her cold. She has also stopped wheezing. I too dont know why they are waiting but its likely becuase their needs to be 6 months between PET scans????
  5. Thanks for responding Tom. We will find out in April. Praying its NOT a recurrence.
  6. Has anyone's lung cancer recurred? if so what were the symptoms? The following is the result of the CT scan from 2/1/16 IMPRESSION: 1. Spiculated mass posterior aspect right lung apex. Based on CT criteria, this appears to have slightly increased in size when compared with prior study and is worrisome for possible metastatic disease/second focus of tumor. 2. Extensive pleural and parenchymal changes in the left upper lung field consistent with the patient's history of left lung cancer. Overall, thickening involving the left lung apex has significantly increased when compared with the prior study. The previously noted mass/soft tissue density involving the anteromedial aspect of the left lung field, which appears to possibly invade the anterior mediastinum and anterior chest wall, is similar to prior studies. 3. Small pericardial effusion. The overall amount of fluid surrounding the heart appears to have slightly increased when compared with previous study and clinical correlation is advised. She is scheduled for at PET scan on 4/15/16. Should she be insisting on getting this done sooner? Last PET was in November of 2015 and everything came back fine. 4 months later this happens.
  7. It's been 8 days since this cold started and she's wheezing like crazy
  8. Latest Chest CT shows a "slight increase" in the size of the tumor so she will be getting yet another PET scan on April 14th with results the next day. I don't understand this because her Nov 2015 PET scan showed NO activity at all. She did however have the start of a chest cold the day the CT was taken. So she's now on antibiotics to treat possible pneumonia. And yes she does have post chemo neuropathy but proved to have an allergy to the med they usually use to treat it.
  9. She seems to be doing okay and is down to 10mg of prednisone and holding. I don't think she will ever be able to go to a lower dose than what she is on now. She complains of numbness and tingling in both hands and feet and the Oncologist believes it is due to the chemo meds she recieved. She will be getting her first CT scan of the year on Febuary 1st, so here's hoping that its a good year.
  10. PET scan revealed no active cancer anywhere in her body. Nothing lit up, not even the old tumor. Next task is to get rid of this "lung specialist".
  11. She will be getting the PET scan the day after tomorrow with results on Friday. The Oncologist says these small "opaque" areas come and go. I know cancer doesn't do that but the Oncologist says she too wants to know if these areas "light up" or not because she has no clue what these things are. I too wish we could stay with one doctor but it seems that, with this clinic, every time a new symptom crops up another specialist gets a referral. The lastest is that none of her usual doctors want to prescribe her pain med so their solution is to refer her to a pain clinic. Hence another specialist. Too many specialists! We did get 1 thing settled. Her cancer is a stage 3A. I'll post the results of the PET scan Friday night. Thanks everybody.
  12. I think that my sister having a lung specialist is a huge mistake. He has her on 40mg of Prednisone and she developed a muscle weakness/nerve problem called foot drop. She ended up falling (without serious injury) 3 times. When we tried to send him email through the clinics email address we got his staff members who told her that the doctor was a pulmonary specialist and she should go to her Primary Doctor. Then their office completely ignored her questions, even when she called them. I finally got pissed off and wrote them an email saying that I found it "despicable" that they were trying to pawn her off on another doctor when its the med that he prescribed that was likely causing the problem. He finally called her back and told her it wasn't the prednisone and that she needed to contact her oncologist for a brain scan and she obviously had "brain mets". We spoke to the Oncologist the next day who assured us that it was simply this foot drop and ordered physical therapy for her. The whole thing didn't sit right with me so I ordered copies of her medical records for the last year and saw that after seeing her once the pulmonary dr. wrote down that she had Stage IV lung cancer. This is NOT a typo as it is listed 3 times in the doctors notes. The initial oncologist (who is now retired) staged her at IIb and nothing was ever told to us about changing the staging of her lung cancer and is part of the pulmonologists notes only. Friday she had her 4th chest CT scan in 4 months and now the pulmonologists PA says everything looks "better" except for a " small 12mm size spot next to what is left of the tumor on her left lung" and they ordered a PET scan for this Thursday. Now they also want to start weaning her off of the Prednisone as of today (even though they didn't change a thing when she was falling). The Pulmonary Dr seems to want to play Oncologist. We are seeing the Oncologist tomorrow afternoon and I am so angry I cant even think straight. We will ask her what the results of the CT scan were and then I plan to hit her with the crap the pulmonary guy is saying she has stage IV cancer and ask what the hell is going on. Thoughts?
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