Dpar

Well, things have been going along fine. Had radiation everyday this past week and chemo on my scheduled Wednesdays. I really haven't felt any effects yet except possibly a bit of a sore throat from the radiation.
I've lost over 40 pounds now and that makes it difficult to do anything, no energy. Try to eat, but can't keep it down.
Actually, I have severe pain and I have been getting morphine for about the past month and a half. It helps the pain somewhat. I had been getting oxycodone and it didn't do anything for the pain. I actually started complaining about the pain in my chest starting about 2 to 3 years ago. But since I have all the wonderful side effects from agent orange such as heart disease, copd, acid reflux, they removed a tumor on my stomach about 10 years ago, it was benign, PTSD, diabetes insulin type and so on, any pain I had they always looked for the heart first and found nothing out of the ordinary considering I've had 5 heart attacks, 7 stents and a pacemaker/defib. I'd go to the hospital and complain about chest pain and that was a couple of years ago and then they would do a stress test and keep me for a few days and say my heart is fine but wouldn't find out what was causing the original pain.
Starting last year, the pain started increasing even worse. The doctors said that it couldn't be cancer because there isn't any pain usually with it. Well after so many tests, and blood tests, endoscopy, colonoscopy, ct scan, pet scan and the finally since I'm a heart risk, the VA docs decided to do an needle aspiration and even with that, there was no reason that they could find why I was in pain. Starting about this January, I got so that I couldn't keep food down, it was becoming hard to swallow and I started losing weight.
I finally asked my VA doc to do an X-ray and there it was, two, not one Squamous Cell (non-small) Carcinoma of the left lung. One was about 7 cm and the other was 3 cm, I think that was the measurements they used, in other words quite large.
So now here I am, a cancer patient that has been in pain but not due to the therapy. Go figure. Now I'm just waiting to see if all this is going to do anything for me. I'm a heart risk so operating has already been ruled out. So, it's a waiting game, though they finally know what is wrong with me.
So as far as the treatments, I have noticed a little hair loss and I just had my third treatment.
I'm in it to win it, so I'm not giving up, but I do find it hard to fight being so weak.
Thanks for listening, and I'll try to be more prompt with my daily experiences, but I felt I was just repeating the same thing.
Good luck to you all who are fighting cancer too.
Best regards, DragonKing (Dave)

Dave,
Understand your fear completely. My diagnosis and first line treatment (name for what you are having) was frightening in the extreme!  
So, radiation is the inverse of March. It comes in like a lamb and goes out like a lion. At first I thought this is no big deal. Then week three happened and my strength departed. My first line chemo (taxol & carboplatin) was weekly but reduced strength. I didn't loose my hair, except my gray hair. My before and after treatment photos showed no gray!
Chemo side effects were also less than full strength chemo. I know this because I experienced 12 more infusions at full strength after recurrences. That brings up an other important point: lung cancer is persistent, suite up for the long game. Recurrence are frequent. 
I found chemo side effects to be somewhat controlled by medication. I experienced an unusual side effect of extreme joint pain but thankfully after chemo side effects are predictable starting almost the same time after infusion. Because of this, I could take my pain meds about an hour before my pain started and minimize the symptom. 
You'll have many more questions. Ask away because you'll likely find answers from the tee-shirt designers the experts wear.
Stay the course. 
Tom

Thanks for your response Julie.


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