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Dear Cindy, Thanks for sharing your experience with us. It is so true that the care giver needs to take care of herself/himself first. Also we need to ask any help whatever we can get. Chihchang

Thanks for sharing this with us. It is very useful. Although I read many stories from time to time in this support site for finding more information for my mom, it is my first time to come into this caregiver forum.

Dear Tom, Thanks for your comment. I agree with you that each patient is unique and the best treatment should be tuned to each individual case. However, I doubt that this is possible at this moment as cancer becomes almost the number one or number two killer disease all over the world and there are so many patients with different cancers. When my mom started with Tarceva again, I witnessed this unbelievable effectiveness of this drug. I know that this industry really has made some significant contribution on cancer treatment and I appreciate that. Just the price of this drug is so high that it is really a burden for many people if the insurance can not cover it. This is particularly true when people at this stage needs to spend quite a lot in everything, including hiring someone to assist their daily life. Chih-Chang

My mom has stopped Tarceva since the end of October. She tried some alternative method and it was not working. Her tumors in brain has affected her function in recognition, memory and movement of her body. We brought her to ER and she stayed in the hospital for two weeks. The doctors gave her Tarceva again and the tumors began to shrink right away just like a magic. She has since improved a lot both in body movement and thinking. But we still need to get the insurance company's approval for the usage of Tarceva, Last time when we could not get Tarceva, I have tried to contact Genetech, then Roche in Taiwan and the parent Roche in Europe. But no one can help me. I hope that this time the insurance company can approve the medicine basing on our current CT scan results.

My Mom has stage 4 lung cancer and the cancer spread to brain too. Before she found out that she has cancer, she had experienced memory loss and depression. She didn't want to talk too much. Her cancer is EGFR mutation. Tarceva seems to be working in shrinking her tumors in her brain. She talks more and has better memory too after the treatment.

I have called Genetch. Although they can not give me Tarceva right away as my mom is in Taiwan, they give me the phone number of Roche(Genetech's parent company) in Taiwan.

Tom, Thanks a lot. I will try that. Chihchang

My mom is in Taiwan and has stage 4 non small lung cancer with EGFR mutation. She is on Tarceva since August and have improved a lot. The CEA value has decreased from 50 to 16. The current CT scan shows that her tumor in her brain has shrink a little. But some of her tumors in her lung grows and some of them shrink. The insurance company in Taiwan just decided the effect is not tremendous to qualify the treatment. Now, what can we do? I am afraid that the tumor may grow back and her symptoms like coughing and pain on her shoulder and lung will come back soon. Tarceva is so expensive that we can not afford without any aid. Does any one know whether we can get a great discount if the insurance won't pay it even outside US. Chihchang