Jeff

Thank you Lou, Tim and Karen for the insight and prayers. I truly appreciate everything I can get. My mom is about to start cycle #2 of the treatment and just 2 days ago she is now officially experiencing hair loss, she still has quite a bit of hair but it’s coming out if she brushes. I spent a couple hours the other night looking at synthetic wigs from Raquel Welch’s line up that she seems to really like, so hopefully they will be here by the time we get back from out of town. She said they the hair loss is worse than the cancer and treatment itself ( to her ) she has been dreading it and was only hoping for hair thinning. Hopefully it slows down, but then with going onto the second treatment I’ve heard that the side effects are accumulative. The status of her phlebitis on her arm is the sweeping has gone away but the color of her skin is red ( possibly from the chemo ) it as far as her vein, it’s swollen hard so they will have to use her other arm. This time they will just re-stick her each day rather than leaving a port in her arm for 3 days for the IV. Thanks again everyone

Hello everyone, Names Jeff, I've lived with my mom all my life and as she has smoked for 60 years of her life ( She quit she was diagnosed cold turkey ) they have been hard times recently while back on 02/03/23 my mother had been experiencing difficulty breathing for almost 2 weeks since she was recently sick with a cold and thought it might have been bronchitis which had then led to pneumonia, so we decided it was time to go to urgent care. So after taking her there, they did a chest X-ray and discovered a large amount of fluid in her right lung along and what appears to be a large mass. She was then taken by ambulance to the hospital where she was then admitted for 5 days when she was discharged on 02/08/23. They ran 3 CT's, multiple tests, including a thoracentesis and drained 1.8 Liters of fluid, performed a bronchoscopy which is where they took multiple samples of the (3.5 cm of the right hi-lar mass). At the time, the pulmonary doctor said that she had extensive small cell lung cancer (Which 2 weeks later after a PET-CT scan showed it was limited stage). She met with a radiation oncologist while in the hospital which ended up being the doctor to get started with radiation treatment. After she was discharged from the hospital and being diagnosed, 1-1/2 weeks later we were able to get right in to see him and get treatment right away. So she completed 25 treatments of radiation and was able to shrink the tumor quite a bit, originally it was for 33 treatments so they are saving the remaining at the end after her Chemo in case they need to. She's had a total of 3 thoracentesis's while 1 of them she got a Pneumothorax ( Collapsed Right Lung ) While the cancer did spread to the nearby lymph node, it did not metastasis to her brain or bones so therefore that is why is is locally-limited and not extensive. 6 weeks after her radiation was finished, we finally were able to get a medical oncologist which he is 2 hours south of Bakersfield, CA. where we live. It was a long road of switching insurance plans (3 times) due to her being on Medicare Advantage. While this oncologist we ended up going to only took a PPO so I was able to get her the insurance she needed. Her current plan of treatment which she started earlier this week on 05/08-05/09-05/10 is a combination of Carboplatin+Etoposide+Immunotherapy ( Atezolizumab ) also while adding a supportive care drug called Cosela ( Trilaciclib ) which is a myleosupport to reduce chemotherapy-induced bone marrow suppression. Today is day 2 of her being back home and since yesterday, her arm has been swelling and today it is worse (I've read that it is a known Chemo side effect) since she did get administered in her arm for 3 days while leaving a port in). She’s been experiencing hard to swallow, which seems to be getting worse from when she got esophagitis from the radiation induced ( which never went away ) she’s been having horrible headaches but was advised to not take Tylenol because it’s a strain on the kidneys and since chemo is so hard on the kidneys, then she can’t take it. She’s been taking Aleve but it doesn’t seem to touch it. Cycle #1 is completed and is set to do 4 cycles every 3 weeks. I do enjoy research and abstracts, but I thought about joining a forum to get others stories, opinions and possibly help with outlook on small cell since it is rare and although there have been cases of cures, I feel as if those are outliers from what I am told and read. While I am hopefully and I am her support, I’m all she has and being there from the start of this. I will update as time goes by, but I am glad I found this forum for additional support. Thank you, Jeff