Angela Dryden

Hi Jim, My Father had a very similar experience. He had the surgery removing his upper left lobe. I look forward to hearing of your progress. You'll be in my thoughts and prayers. Best wishes, Angela

Hi Bunny, Thanks very much for the information. I appreciate your input on Tarceva. What I truly appreciate about this forum--apart from the wealth of information--is that most of the information comes from actual patients who have been through what my father may likely experience himself. We'll not make a decision until my father sees his oncologist on 28 December. He's leaning toward Alimta with some occasional Avastin support. We'll just have to make that decision when the time comes. In any case, he's in a good position with the knowledge, experience and medical team support to be able to choose for himself. Thanks again, everyone. Our journey has become easier with your help. Best, Angela P.S. Bunny, who is that gorgeous child?

Hi Katie, Thanks for your prayers and wishes. I need to update my sig file, since we've gotten the CT Scan back and it shows persisting nodules, although somewhat smaller. As of now my father is considering Alimta with or without Avastin. Tarceva is still a possibility too. But since Alimta is more aggressive with fewer side effects than other cocktails, it might be most appropriate. I agree with his thinking on this. While he's much better, he's still quite weak from that first infusion of the taxol/carboplatin/avastin. So he may forego Avastin for the first or second infusion of the next round. We'll have to see how it's going when we get there. Thanks so much to everyone again, Angela

Hi Wendy, We didn't know exactly how low his count was when we first spoke out loud about not continuing chemo beyond that first infusion. He was having spiking fever, as expected. All we knew was that the pain, fatigue and other discomfort was beyond management. I figured the count would be low, since the team warned us that it would become low and appropriate precautions would need to be taken. It wasn't until he went in for his first labs that the oncology team were shocked at his WBC. Yeah,I was scared. Best, Angela

Thanks so much, Ned. I'll check it out now. Best, Angela

Ry, The oncologist did mention that the Tarceva would likely be supplemented with something else, so I bet he's thinking of Avastin given your suggestion as well as what I'm reading in your signature files. Since the focus is on recovery from the chemo right now, I don't think those questions were asked since they are non-urgent. In fact, I nearly forgot my father had cancer since the recent urgency has been caused by the chemo itself. My sister goes to the oncology visits, since she's local, and I get the first round of information from her. Fortunately, I can call the oncology nurse and she will take as much time as is required to answer what questions remain. Thanks again, Angela

Thanks everyone for the kind welcome. And I appreciate your thoughts and prayers as well. We're just learning all this information in the last several weeks, but since it's a bit of a fluke that my father has been diagnosed so early, we have the advantage of time. The first small nodules were discovered with Xrays around January 2006 because he had a persistent respiratory infection following a bout of flu, so they were looking for pneumonia. In any case, I appreciate everyone's help and sharing of experience. Being able to read everyone's signature file to read first-hand experiences of others is a tremendous help as well, since my father's experience thus far is pretty atypical. Thanks very much again, Angela

Hello everyone, I just registered here, and I am very glad to have found this forum. Since this is my first post, I hope that my signature file is coherent ... as I'm not totally fluent with all of the terminology as yet. I've been doing some lurking here prior to posting, and I really appreciate the community here. My father had significant difficulty with his first chemo treatment of Taxol, Carboplatin & Avastin -- so much so that we decided that, on the 9th day after the first treatment, we would quit. it just was too much. He was in so much pain that lying down hurt as much as it did to stand up. Since he was too fatigued to stand up, we had a real problem. While the oncology nurse phoned him every day to follow up, I'm not sure he was able to articulate or even recognize the degree of trouble in which he was. It's hard to be analytical when you're that sick and trying so damned hard to be positive. It turns out that we didn't need to make our case about quitting the chemo to the oncology team. Once they got a look at him on day 10 when he went in for his labs they canceled further treatments of their own accord and scooted him into his GP's office to get flooded with antibiotics. He had no white cells, so he couldn't even be admitted to the hospital because of the risk of staph or mrsa. So they gave him bone marrow stimulants over the next days to boost WBC. Turns out he's amongst the 5% whom cannot tolerate the particular chemo cocktail that was favored by his oncologist. So now, 5 weeks after the first treatment, we are waiting for him to recover from that first devastating infusion of chemo. We'll get the CT Scan done on 12 December and start to make some decisions regarding future treatment in the next week or so. The oncologist has put 4 options on the table as being viable, one of which is Tarceva. My father has expressed a preference for that pill, going forward, and I can't blame him. I think that, if I were in his position, I would choose the same. We're very lucky, in my opinion, to have a great oncology team right in my father's small town in Colorado. They are blunt, proactive and have diagnostic facilities nearby. Thanks for hearing me out, and thanks so much for this great forum. Best wishes, Angela