beckyg

I have stage IIIA adenocarcinoma, and I am 30 years old. There are great people here, plenty who have stage IV and are surviving it all. Unfortunately, cancer doesn't care how old you are, but I like to tell myself that being young is an advantage when it comes to getting through this. Hang in there and keep us posted on your dad. Becky

Your post just reminded me--we have been doing graduate student orientation this week, and we gave them a packet of information. Someone stuck in a self-test about stress in your life. For fun this afternoon, I took it. The results? I have mild stress in my life. That included major illness, husband losing job, and financial concerns. I wonder what you have to have go wrong to have moderate stress? The whoel thing struck me as very funny. Glad to hear your good news. Becky

I think the smoking question is on a level with asking a woman who was raped what she was wearing or asking an AIDS patient if he's gay or an addict, but I almost welcome it anyway. I probably would feel differently about it if I had a diferent answer to the question, but right now I think of it as an opportunity to educate people about lung cancer. If it had ever dawned on me before my diagnosis that this could happen to me, I would have insisted on at least an x-ray years ago--I had the frequent bronchitis which is on EVERY list of early warning signs of lung cancer. Also, I have said this before, but I'll say it again. Although the smoking question is thoughtless and hard to take, I think it is rarely malicious. We have mostly as a society gotten over the other two examples, but I think all three happen for the same reason--people really want to believe that if you don't do risky things, bad things won't happen to you.

I saw some old friends this weekend--people I hadn't seen since college, nine years or more ago. One of them commented that he had never seen my hair so short, and I said, "Oh, you didn't hear. This is chemo hair. I have lung cancer." He sat for a minute starting at me and then said something about how young I am and that he knew I didn't smoke in college. I told him I never did smoke and that my situation is more common than people think. He asked if anyone knew why this happened, and I said, "No, but I think it is that the air is not as clean as the President would have us believe." I have conversations like this all the time. People don't know it is even possible to get lung cancer if you don't smoke. They don't know it is possible to get lung cancer if you aren't at least 50 years old. I have started decorating my office door with lung cancer facts and some cancer facts in general. The general cancer facts I am interested in are how it affects "young adults" because, heck, most of my audience is in the 18-25 age range. There is at least one major in our department who is currently in remission from some sort of cancer (a lymphoma, I believe). A friend stopped by my office yesterday on her way out to donate blood. For just a minute I caught myself feeling guilty that I haven't donated since January. Then sanity settled in. My husband's uncle was diagnosed with prostate cancer two weeks ago in his annual physical. He had surgery on Friday and is doing well. The doctor said none of the lymph nodes tested positive for cancer, so he feels good about getting it all. I think Steve is right now more down about having the catheter for 4 weeks and Depends for at least a few months than he is about the cancer. I understand that feeling--I focus on the inconveniences of this disease because if I focus on the fact that I have cancer rather than on the fact that I hate my current hairstyle, then the depression hits. Becky

I'd settle for the states using the money they won from tobacco companies in those big lawsuits to pay for them.

Wow! What a relief. I had been wondering about you. Becky

My team has told me that we are looking for the lung tumor to have had noticeable shrunkage. (My lymph node tumors are too small to show up on CT scans.) The idea is that if it has shrunk, the chemo most likely took care of micrscopic mets elsewhere in my body. They don't want to put me through the surgery unless they feel reasonably sure that the cancer is contained, and that's the best way they have now to tell that. Becky

Carleen, I am so happy for you two. Keep fighting. Becky

I have a bug problem in my house. Mostly fleas, but also ants. I have been treating the cats with Frontline, but the flea problem never really goes away. In the past I have had great success with indoor foggers, but now I am very hesitant to use them. Anybody have any ideas about getting rid of my fleas without making it even more diffcult to breathe? Becky

The teaching is good for me mentally, emotionally, and certainly financially. But it comes down to the fact the I feel good right now and can handle the job. The future is too uncertain to take a semester off while I feel okay. Mentally, I learned in the last six months that it is a whole lot easier for me to be optimistic when I have someplace to go and something to do everyday. I won't be running up those stairs anytime soon--just keep plodding up them slowly for a while. I learned this morning that I should hold off on vacuuming for a bit too! Becky

I saw the oncologist this morning. He looked at me like I was crazy (happens almost every visit) when I said I was planning to teach full time this semester. But he also said that he could hear air in my entire right lung, which is new and different. He couldn't hear any fluid in there (I knew that--my cough has become very dry lately). I am not sure if the change is just from radiation pneumonitis healing or if there is a difference because of the tumor shrinking (I hope, I hope), but he was optimistic that the Iressa is working. Won't know for sure until next month (unless of course something else goes wrong and I get an unexpected scan), but it is nice to have the oncologist being optimistic. I climbed the stairs to the second floor today! I was breathing hard when i got to the top, but recovered quickly--just walked slowly, didn't need to sit down and pant. I am doing most tihngs these days, but I can't carry my daughter much anymore. But she is three years old and 33 pounds--time for her to start getting over wanting to be carried anyway! Becky

Good for both of you! Becky

Cheryl, I was miserable the week after my second Cisplatin and VP-16 treatment, but it was like a really bad stomach virus. I lived on tiny sips of apple juice and water and salitne crackers. When I went in for radiation the following Monday, I told them, "If I haven't lost weight this week, there's no way I ever will in my life." I already take Prevacid daily--had a hiatal hernia long before this cancer made itself know, so maybe that's why I was spared the burning you are talking about. My hair started growing back almost exactly one month after my last day of treatment, which was April 16. Now I look like I hae a military cut, and it hasn't done any notcieable growing for a while--I think the Taxotere and the Iressa have slowed down all hair growth. While I was bald I still had to shave my legs and underarms and had facial hair that I didn't want and all that. Now I have a head full of short hair and all my body hair is getting thin. Go figure. Anyway, in three weeks or so you will probably start feeling baby soft fuzz on top of your head. Hang in there. Becky

Don't forget the WNBA's Kim Perrot who died in 1999 at age 32.

Mine usually checks after the second treatment, but 3 treatments doesn't seem so unreasonable. The chemo takes a while to have a noticeable impact.

Cheryl, The complication was that the surgeon nicked an artery while doing the biopsy. He was unable to stop the bleeding by cauterizing, so he cracked open my sternum in order to stop the bleeding. So I have the big scar like someone who had heart surgery; I had the recovery from surgery which had no benefit to me; and I had to wait four more weeks to start treatment. (I know these things happen, and it could have happened to anyone, but I am still feeling hostility about the whole experience. Oh well.) Becky

Well, I have been on Iressa three weeks now and my nose is pretty broken out. My scalp is tender, but I have grown enough fuzz since May that I can't see a rash. I have noticed that my cough is dryer than it has been in months--that's harder on my throat thn the juicy cough I have had for so long, but maybe it means the Iressa is working. I have had a mild pleural effusion at least since June (never more than about a cup of fluid in there--not enough to drain, but it did have cancer cells in it when they sampled it.) I am also fighting a bladder infection. It's been years since I had one and I had almost forgotten how unpleasant they can be. But I am off the oxygen and might well come off the steroids next week when I see the oncologist. I know plenty of people here take way more medications than I do, but I have been taking 6 different drugs at night lately. My medicine cabinet looks like a pharmacy to me. Every drug off the list is a little victory for me. Thinking of you all, Becky

Cheryl, I missed my first cycle in July, though I had Cisplatin and VP-16 in March and April. I don't know if it was a delayed reaction or it the Taxotere I had in June and July actually did it. Anyway, now I am having hot flashes along with my mom. The oncologist still says that given my age it is likely it will be temprary. Becky

Wow, that story sounds familiar. I am 30 years old and a nonsmoker and got my diagnosis in January when my pneumonia didn't clear up after months of coughing. I went in for surgery on Valentine's Day staged at "probably II, maybe IIIA". My surgeon went for a strategy of testing my lymph nodes first. Since they came back cancerous, the plan was to sew me back up and send me to an oncologist. However, I got a big scar anyway because in doing the biopsy he managed to cut an artery and couldn't stop the bleeding without cracking my breastbone. It seems like there are two schools of thought--my crew thinks it is better to leave the big tumor in until chemo and radation have shrunk it so there is confidence that chemo has also taken care of micro mets, and other doctors like the idea of taking it out as soon as possible. Since so far my treatments haven't shrunk anything at all, I find myself wishing that once that surgeon cracked my chest open he had gone ahead and removed the tumors. But then if he had I might be wishing he hadn't. No point in going there. Anyway, welcome to the board and I have my fingers crossed that you stay cancer free. Becky

So far I have nothnig to report on Iressa. I have had no side effects at this point, and I won't go back to the oncologist for anything scheduled until the end of the month. I am keeping my fingers crossed, though. Becky

I am glad to hear someone else mention swallowing hurting their ears. My doctor looked at me like I was nuts when I said that and told me he had never heard of that before! It did get better pretty quickly for me, though. By a week after radiation ended, I was eating most things comfortably. (Steak was off the menu for a while, and I do love fajitas, but no more pain in the ears.) Becky

Cheryl, My radiation doctor said the same thing. They did remap me 3/4 of the way through, and the swallowing pain did start to ease after that. I did not have a CT scan until 3 weeks after radiation ended--they said it was because radiation continues to work for several weeks after the treatments stop. In my case, the CT scan showed no change in the tumor size. Also, you have probably learned here about the problems with surgery after too much radiation. I had never heard of that until I went back to Houston after chemo and radiation and was told that I had malignant pleural effusion, so surgery wasn't an option currently, and surgery might never be an option because I had too much radiation. I mention this just because you might want to check with your radiation doc and make sure everyone is on the same page about you aiming for surgery again after this treatment. It is a real shock to find out that the goal you have been aiming for is out of the picture because the doctors treating you all have different ideas about what happens to a Stage IIIA lung cancer patient. Becky

Fay--No doctor discussed harvesting eggs with me, but we did read up on it ourselves and decided that the expense and physical hardship of it wasn't worth it to us. Our plan all along had been to have two biological children and then to adopt one or maybe two. We made the decision that if the cancer treatment leaves me infertile, we will just skip to the adoption. So far none of the chemo drugs I have taken are on the list of drugs that "almost always" cause infertility. My doctors think that given my age, I will likely start normal cycles again within 6-8 months of ending chemo, but I will likely enter menopause younger than I otherwise would, so if I am going to have another child, I may not have much time to do so. Of course all this discussion is premised on me first getting to remission, and I am still determined to get there. One of these drugs has to work--I just wish we could find it. Becky

I sent Curtis to Wal-Mart the other night for a home pregnancy test. I had missed a cycle and wanted to make sure before I started Iressa that it was because of the chemo and not because I was pregnant. He stood in the line to pay and the checkout girl said, "Oh, I hope congratulations are in order." He said it was hard for him not to lay into her about all the hard implications of either result of the test, and just said, "I hardly think that's appropriate." She said, "Oh, it's one of those." He was still mad when he got home. I know that girl never thought that the test was for someone struggling with cancer, but she also never thought that her opinion was probably not wanted on something so personal. I am glad to say that I am not pregnant because I don't want to worry about what my cancer treatments have already done to a baby and all ther other implications of being pregnant at the same time as having lung cancer that is not responding to anything yet. But I am scared that I won't have that option again one of these days when I finally get into remission. Katie was never intended to be an only child. Take care everyone. Becky

Well, after a week of steroids and inhalers and oxygen, I am not cured but I am feeling much better. I visited both oncologists for followup today and they both were impressed by the improvement since last week. They are in agreement based on my CT scan last week and my symptoms that this is radiation pneumonitis. My prednisone is "low dose", but since it seems to be doing the job without unwanted side effects, they want me to stick with it as it is. I am still short of breath, but am able to get around my house. I am still not doing crazy things like cooking or cleaning house, but it is a relief to be able to get to the bathroom without with dragging the portable oxygen or having to recover for 5 or more minutes! Tonight I start Iressa. Maybe this one will finally have a positive impact on my nasty tumor! Becky