AmyGM

Hi My name is Amy and my mother was dx in July 2015 with a malignant neoplasm of the upper right lobe of the right lung. She had a right upper lobectomy. No chemo. no rads. No mets. no lymph involvement. She has been recovering and doing very well. She is 70 years old. This past tuesday we took her for her 6 month f/u chest CT with contrast. I am very worried. Probably because I know too much since I too am a cancer survivor (breast, TNBC 3.5 yrs. NED) Her thoracic surgeon told us that her CT looked good but that he wants to see her back in three months instead of 6 because the radiologist saw a "shadow" in the lower right lobe. He told her that we were not to worry. He made no mention of a nodule. Today she opened up her health portal med. record and looked at her CT report and it says " New ground-glass and partially cystic irregularly shaped subpleural pulmanry nodule in the superior segment of the right lower lobe, associated with new focal pleural retraction, concerning for a metachronoous log grade non-small cell lung carcinoma. No solid component is visualized and this lesion is not amendable to image guided percutaneous biopsy at this moment" F/U in three months for ct without contrast. nodule measures up to 5 mm. I am so confused about all this means. Help.....and why did he not mention a nodule. In my opinion he minimized it completely. Any body out there know what all this means??????

Tom: None of my mom's doctors have called me back so I called UVA Lung Cancer Clinic and referred her for a second opinion. We go in the am. Can't wait another two weeks for all the rural docs to get it together enough to collaborate. Praying for a miracle! Thank you for the support. Best, Amy

Tom: Thanks for staying in touch. You have given me great suggestions/advice. I am going to call the pulmonary doc. in the am with my questions. I will post what I find out. I am also going to call UVA and get her an appt. for a second opinion. I feel like the wheels are moving way too slow. She lives in a smaller community (they only do PET Scans two days a week?) I have been busy all day creating a notebook with her paperwork that she will need, copies of scan reports, medication lists etc... I dread having to help her to complete an advance health care directive. I am reliving my nightmare all over again but she is worth it. Thank you again! Best, Amy

Tom, Thank you for the quick response! I have been reading a lot about neoadjuvant chemo in some advance lung cancers, so we may be facing that. I had neoadjuvant chemo to get into my system prior to surgery. I will definitely ask about the cyber knife radiation if surgery is out. I will be with her for the biopsy and follow up appt. (I live 6.5 hrs away, but know first hand that she needs someone with her to write things down, ask questions and to hold her hand). Don't know about the flexible or rigid scope, but will ask. I will ask for the magic cough med. and will get her chloraseptic spray. Her pulmonary doc has suggested a thoracic surgeon in Fairfax Va (she's in Winchester-1.5 hr drive) but I want my mom to consider a research hospital like UVA. Any thoughts on this? We have not met the med. Oncologist yet. Thanks again.......nice to connect with survivors Best, Amy

Hi everyone: My name is Amy and my mom (age69) was just recently diagnosed on Thursday. She had a screening ct scan on July 14th which showed a nodule, then a PET scan on Wednesday, 8/29 which revealed a 1.4 cm right upper lobe pulmonary nodule and 4 hyper metabolic borderline enlarged and mildly enlarged mediastinal lymph nodes. prelim radiographic TNM staging is IIIa; T2; N2; M0 and the lung cancer is resectable. She is scheduled for a bronchoscopy biopsy on 8/6 and then an appt. with her pulmonary specialist on 8/10 to discuss the biopsy results. I am a 3 year triple neg. breast cancer survivor and am very scared about what is ahead. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. I.hate.cancer!