dana c

Hi, I just wanted to say I am so sorry. My Mom was diagnosed with limited stage small cell also. I try not to cry in front of my mom either, I feel like she'll think I've given up on her. I just try to find out all I can and keep her optimistic, which is hard sometimes. I wish they had a support group around here for lung cancer, we're in Missouri. There are support groups for so many other types of cancer but not lung cancer. If you've read some of the other posts you probably saw mine about M.D. Anderson, check out their website & ask her oncologist about the C-kit gene (Gleevec) I've had some replies from the other people on the site about 2nd opinions, etc Good luck to you & your mom, I will keep you guys in my prayers. This site is wonderful, hopefully we can all keep eachother up on the latest treatments. I keep telling my mom that this is just a little detour on her path, everyone has obstacles they have to overcome....some are just a lot harder than others. If you haven't read Lance Armstrong's book check it out at the library, it's very inspiring, I checked out the book on CD for my mom so she could listen to it w/ headphones at chemo. Take care, Dana

Thank you for the kind words & info. My son's asleep right now so I have more time to write. My Mom see's her oncologist once a month and has a chest x-ray,( itleast when she was doing the chemo) only once a month. It seems to me that w/ such an aggressive cancer they should keep better tabs on it??? Any thoughts? I am just so scared that the couple of weeks when they switched her to topotecan and it had no effect and the tumor actually grew that it also spread I just pray that it didn"t (my keyboards messed up so excuse the lack of punctuation) I keep trying to talk my parents into going to MD Anderson I just feel that she will have a better shot there They talked to her doctor about it yesterday and he told them that they would be doing the exact same thing there and that they really didnt have that great of a cure rate either But I got on their site the other day and read one of their CMEs for physicians and it said limited stage can be cured I just feel like her doctor isnt being as positive as we need him to be I feel like half the battle is my moms attitude and she needs someone to give her hope not grim statistics Any ideas on how I can boost my Moms attitude? I keep telling her that she is in control of her care and that if they arent telling her what she wants to hear that we need to go somewhere else I think Im just babbling now sorry I just feel that they should be treating more than just the tumor Im so glad I found this site Thank you for the responses You are all in my prayers

Hi I found this site a couple of weeks ago, but wasn't sure what I wanted to say. My Mom, my best friend, was diagnosed w/ SCLC limited stages in November of 2002, my son (her first grandchild) wasn't even 3 months old. They started her on VP16 & cisplatin, she did that I believe 4 times, maybe 5 and the next time she went in, they told her it wasn't shrinking the tumor anymore and so they started topotecan, a couple of weeks after that she started getting really short of breath went in for blood work and found out she was anemic, they gave her procrit but it didn't seem to help, she went in for a chest xray and found out the top lobe of her left lung had collapsed. Basically the new drug didn't do anything and the tumor grew, she's doing radiation now, she's going on her second week but so far it hasn't done anything, does anyone know if it usually takes a while? I went to www.blochcancer.org andfound out about M.D. Anderson. Has anyone heard anything about it? Have to go (crying baby) will write more later. You are all in my prayers.