Alyssa125

Welcome Craig! I am new to the site as well although I am a caretaker. I look forward to hearing about your story and am going to read your blog right now! Take care and I wish you the best.

Oh dear instead of that smiley face it should have been the number eight. I must have hit a wrong key. Sorry!

Thank you again for your kind words everyone. Janet, yes mom had whole brain radiation done immediately upon finding the tumors in her brain. She has many (at least 8 ), so they are not sure if they were able to fix anything but either way, I think it gave us some time. The radiation was really hard on her (obviously it is on everyone) so we are still dealing with side effects of that and side effects of brain tumors. It's hard to tell the difference for the doctors also. Next week we meet with the doctors again and a final decision will be made on whether or not to continue the Tarceva. I don't know if I mentioned this in my first post but the doctors wanted to stop it a month ago as they feel there is nothing more they can do but Dad wasn't ready to stop yet. So we were given a month to see if Mom shows any improvement and if not, she will most likely go on hospice. Still fingers are crossed and prayers are being said. Being a caregiver is difficult. I am trying to see to it that both my Dad and I are taking care of ourselves as well as Mom. Luckily we are on a few days of Mom sleeping through the night so I hope that continues because as we've found out, no sleep helps NO ONE. THank you again for reading~

Thank you Eric for your kind post. I went to your link and read your story and wow what a great one it is! We, also, had a doctor tell us that my mom had months to live (4 years ago) and she has proven them wrong! Every day with her is a blessing, I truly believe that. I tell her every day multiple times how much I love her. I will add your continued success to my prayers and hope only the best for you. THank you for welcoming me on here, and your friend was right. Hope is what we are all looking for.

I'm so glad I found Lungevity. My mom, age 59, has had Stage IV NSCLC for the past 4 years. She has both brain and bone mets. When she was first diagnosed the cancer was discovered in her bones and she had to do a cat scan to see that it started in her lungs. SO..we started late in the game. From the beginning it's always been contain the cancer as best as we can not cure it. The lung and bones were what we dealt with the first 3 years and then this past year it went to her liver and lastly the past 2 months it has spread to her brain. I live at home with my parents (I'm 32, single, no kids and moved back once mom got sick) and so my dad and I are the primary caregivers for Mom. Every day since the cancer has spread to her brain, it has gotten harder and harder for Mom. She has severe memory loss and trouble speaking and she is getting weaker and weaker on her left side. Currently she is on Tarceva and her doctors want to stop it because they feel that there is nothing more they can do; they want to put her on Hospice as well. We are in what might be the last month of her treatment. My dad wasn't ready to stop treatment so she is in a "trial" month and if her symptoms get worse, the doctors advice is still to stop the pill. If her symptoms get better than we can talk about continuing. Unfortunately we are in two weeks of this "trial" month and her symptoms have only gotten worse. So to end this, I'm glad that I joined this online support community because I could use some words of encouragement and just be able to connect to other people that are going through the same thing or taking care of family members with the same situation. Thanks for reading!