Don M

Rdny, I hope today brings you fond memories of the good times and that the sting of your loss has lessened. don M

welcome Colleen. I have been on tarceva for 12 days now. Don M

Hi Peggy: it is good to see you post. I guess the pain of your loss is less now, and that is good. I hope you have a full recovery from your stroke. I hope next year is a better year for you all. Don M

I am sorry to read of Karen's passing. My condolences to her family. Don M

Andy, please accept my condolences at your loss. It sounds like you all have been having good grief letting. My family is Irish and I am well acquainted with the energies and dynamics that you speak of. I speak to my deceased brother, father and grandparents often in my head. sometimes images of them just pop in and I say hello. Don M

I had a ct scan every 6 months and an x-ray at the 3 month interval between ct scans after my 2 surgeries. This tracking schedule was sufficient to find my second tumor and a year later my third tumor when they were about 1 cm in size. At that time, we were just doing follow-up after surgery. Since my third cancer, I have had a PET/CT scan every 3 months, in order to track the effectiveness of treatment. Don M

I am glad you are feeling better Sally. Hopefully now that you have the gastric problem under control, you could finish chemo if you want to. I am not sure, but it may be that you have had 3 rounds of alimta. Maybe that is enough. I had 4 rounds of alimta in 2006. I did not have too much of a problem with it, but it did nothing to slow down my tumor. Maybe there is something to the idea that it gave you a benefit in terms of whacking the tumor since it whacked your body too. Anyway, I hope you got some benefit from it. Don M

Thanks MC. I will give Aquaphor a try. Don M

Welcome Sonya. It seems like medicaid may be your best route. good luck. Don M

Hi Fanzio. I just want to welcome you. I have had 2 lung surgeries. everyone says go see the surgeon about the blood in the sputum and I agree. don M

Thanks for your explanation Jackie. It sounds reasonable to me. So my eyeballs are starting to sag along with the rest of my body. I can live with that. "Floaters" Don M

I have just noticed some weird peripheral flashing patterns on my field of vision and was wondering if it has anything to do with the tarceva. Comments anyone? The patterns just stopped. Maybe my computer screen is too bright. Maybe I am just paranoid. It has been 9 days and I have a subtle rash on my forehead and an itchy scalp. Gee, I wonder if I will have to shave my beard? It itches under my beard too. Maybe i can just trim it very short and apply some kind of goo. Don M

Ghita, please accept my condolences for the loss of your husband. don M

Wow, Rebecca, it looks like you will have your hands full. I am sorry you and yours have to deal with the lc, but welcome to the site. Don M

Good luck Ken. I get the feeling you have made the best choice. Don M

Good luck with your surgery Lilly. I rememberer making jokes all the time to relieve tension when I had my 2 surgeries. Don M

maybe it is just treatment related inflammation

a cyberknife facility in East Texas: http://www.cyberknifeoftexas.com/ these guys may answer your questions about the various radiation therapies without sounding so irritated as the doc at he ck message board did. I think you would be ok though with imrt that has some way to account for some tumor movement. I think it would be worth a consultation trip to the Texas facility. Don M

Sounds great. don m

Ken: Cyberknife radiation if the most accurate of any of the radiation treatments and probably has the least side effect, at least for smallish tumors, say less than 4 cm. I had ck treatment for a 7 cm tumor and now I have pneumonitis. It is the only radiation therapy that can account for tumor movement during breathing. It has sub millimeter accuracy while imrt can be accurate to within 2 or 4 millimeters, but can often be bigger, because of the movemen of the tumor. There are methods to minimize the effect of tumor movement in imrt. One method is to use an onboard imager to allow the computer to know exactly where the tumor is just before zapping. They call this image guided radiation therapy (IGRT). Some places also use a gating technology. They track the up and down motion of the chest and do the zapping at the top of the up cycle. Some places don’t attempt to account for tumor movement at all and just plan on a target field that the tumor will occupy during the breathing cycle, which is where you would get the most lung damage, maybe as much as 2 or 3 cm. If you are going to do imrt, find a place that uses the IGRT technique. Cyberknife is the best though, but there could be insurance hassles. One nice ting about cyberknife, is that you would be done in 3 treatments for a smallish tumor. IMRT would take 33 treatments. http://www.accuray.com/patientinfo/index.aspx http://www.elekta.com/healthcare_intern ... herapy.php Don M

Part of my treatment when I had pneumonia was to go on prednisone, a steroid. Is he on meds? Talk to Dr West. http://www.onctalk.com/ Don M

maybe proton therapy would have the least side effects, but I am not sure. you can get some lung tissue loss from imrt, but not a lot. It would show up as scar tissue after treatment. Don M

I don’t know of anyone that has had proton therapy, but had looked into it at one time. I found that I could not have it because I had prior radiation at the site. They use different energy sources. Proton therapy uses protons and intensity modulated radiation therapy (imrt) uses x-rays and is just usual radiation therapy except the beam is shaped and it targets a tumor and nothing else. Proton therapy is very expensive. It also targets the tumor and nothing else. There are just 3 of them in the usa. There are many imrt machines. They would be at just about any cancer center and it is much cheaper. I think they both have the same outcome in terms of successful treatment. You could go to the cyberknife message board and ask the radiation oncologists there about the 2 therapies. They will give a brief answer. http://www.cyberknifesupport.org/forum/ Don M

Poggie, I also have your family in my prayers. don m

Welcome Bryan. I have hard of stage 4 lung cancer adrenalectomies. The mediastinum would have to be clear though I think. Maybe your dad could have surgery after systemic control is established with chemo. Ask Dr. West about it. He works at Swedish Cancer Institute in Seattle. They might consider such a surgery there. http://www.onctalk.com/ Don M