Don M

Gone...solid gone.

Welthy: Cyberknife is the most accurate form of radiation. It accounts for breathing motion. After ck the next most accurate are the various flavors of IMRT. Image Guided Radiation Therapy (IGRT) is about the same as Tomotherapy for accuracy. CK has sub-millimeter accuracy and image guided IMRT systems have accuracy with a few millimeters. You should explain you situation to the radiation oncologists at the ck website. They can give you the rundown on the various IMRT systems and ck. I am not sure if they would recommend ck or not. http://www.cyberknifesupport.org/forum/ Don M

Kate, please accept my condolences. Don M

I had to retire soon after my pneumonectomy because I could not do the physical aspect of my job any more. I have been retired for almost 2 years now. I stop in time from time to visit at the workplace. About a month ago, one of my work friends emailed me and asked if I would like help in putting up my firewood stash. I gratefully accepted. About a week later, 8 people came over and put up 4 cords of wood for me in one day. I provided pizza, pop and water. One of the guys had a wood splitting machine and that made it go really fast. I helped run the machine. Don M

Dina: It sounds like your dad can beat it with the surgery. It is not uncommon for older people to get stuff to pop up in the lung and it just sits there without changing so that is why the doc wanted to just monitor it. It would be not be a good thing to undergo a biopsy for something that is not a problem. Don M

There is suffering. I am sorry Jane, you and your mom have my prayers. don M

I am glad to hear your mom is feeling better. don M

Please accept my condolences for your loss. don M

I am glad you and your mom are in a comfortable place now. You both have my prayers. Don M

Hi Barbara; I was told that getting some exercise, walking is the best, helps reduce fatigue. So I would walk in the morning and rest in the afternoon. I think it helped. Just don't push your self too much. I also have read that ginseng may help reduce fatigue. http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/200706 ... er-fatigue Don M

hi Jennifer. I am glad to see your mom is doing the chemo ok. SCLC is usually very responsive to chemo. Don M

Hi Grammy. Miracle on. Don M

Hi and welcome. I found that my oncologists and pulmonologist seemed to be more willing to spend time with me. My surgeons, although very good, gave me a sense of not wanting to be chatty. They were thorough at the consultations, but their forte is not really patient contact I thought. I started out with stage 1b. Since you talked with the surgeon, it looks like your dad is a candidate. The surgeon will want to have your dad's pulmonary capacity checked. He won't proceed with surgery unless a pulmonologist says your dad can handle the surgery and be able to function after the surgery. He will also have an electrocardiogram (EKG) to make sure his heart can withstand the surgery. If the tumor is contained in just one lobe, he will have a lobectomy. Sometimes more than one lobe is affected and he could lose an entire lung on the left or if it on the right lung, 2 lobes or all 3 lobes could be gone. The right lung is bigger than the left lung. The right lung has 3 lobes while the left lung has 2 lobes. That would be the number one question I think. How much lung is going to be lost? The risk is not too great if the heart is ok and the pulmonary capacity is ok. I don’t remember for sure what it is, but I think the mortality risk is around 5%. I kind of ignored it when I had my surgeries. When I had my second surgery, they took out the rest of my left lung and I had to be on oxygen for a month. That could be a possibility for your dad, having to be on oxygen for a while. If it is just a lobectomy, he will likely do ok. Be sure to have the anesthesiologist use an epidural because that has been shown to prevent long-term postoperative pain and also helps manage the immediate pain after an operation. The epidural or any other pain med will suppress the ability to urinate or have bowel movements. I tried to get the catheter out of me as soon as possible so that I could get my body adjusted to peeing by itself again. Removing the epidural as soon as possible helps, but you have to balance elimination problems with managing pain. The surgeon will check the lymph nodes at the mediastinum (the area between the lungs)to see if they are malignant. If they are, he will probably not complete the surgery and your dad would be restaged to 3a. He would then recover and have chemo and radiation. Many people with 3a will have surgery after conventional treatment. Surgeons remove lymph nodes and have them tested by a pathologist at surgery. The results are immediate. Sometimes they can be swollen, but not malignant. Sometimes all the mediastinal lymph nodes can be removed just to be sure, and they are tested for malignancy. Other surgeons may just remove a sample of lymph nodes to be tested. Our bodies will not miss 15 or so lymph nodes. The tumor will be sent in for a thorough test and the staging may be refined. They will also check the healthy part of the lung that has been removed to see if there are any malignant lymph nodes within the lung. If there are, I think that affects the staging. Having malignant lymph nodes in the lung is not as bad as having them outside the lung. They will also check the lung or lobe in pathology to make sure there was a good margin of healthy tissue around the tumor. I think they like to see a minimum of a cm or 2 of healthy tissue around the tumor. If your dad has a lobectomy, he will wake up with a tube in his chest to drain fluid between the remaining lobe and the chest wall. He will have to be sure to cough a lot during recovery to get the gunk out of his lung to make sure no pneumonia comes in. If he has the entire lung removed, there will be no chest tube. I think the oncologist will recommend chemo after surgery since it is stage 1b. I did not have chemo after my stage 1b and first cancer and wish that I had done it. It might have stopped my cancer from coming back, but there is no way to tell for sure. I had chemo after my second cancer and third cancer. It was not too hard. Good luck to your and your dad. Don M

Keep it up Connie. 12 years is a long time but I bet it seems just like yesterday. Don M

Hi Sophie; I hope your mom continues to improve to the point of being NED. don M

hi Le Ann: welcome to this site. it looks like to me that your uncle had a very good chance for a cure. don m

you have my prayers Nina. don M

Hi Jennifer: It has to be hard being so far from your mom. As soon as she gets treatment started some of the shock will wear off and a routine will settle in. I live on the Pennisula too, near Humptulips. Don M

Welcome back Bucky and good luck with your tests. don M

Hi John. I hope you get rid of it. don M

I pretty much agree with Janehill, Lonely. She expressed her advice very well. I wanted to say something like that, but hesitated. The fact that your husband managed just fine to take care of himself when he had to is very telling. I am not a caregiver, but I have cancer. I guess I am in the first group of patients that Janehill talked about. But, I do accept help when offered. I recently had a bunch of friends offer to put up my next winter's firewood for me and I gratefully and gracefully accepted. I bought pizza and pop and they came and put up 4 cords for me in one day. I helped run the mechanical firewood splitter. It was like a big party. I like to stay as active as I can. I walk a mile a day and do other things for exercise as gardening. I keep the house clean and fix my own meals. I WANT to be as active and independent as possible. It is my main weapon against the cancer. Attitude Don M

Here are some links for ck. http://www.cyberknifesupport.org/forum/ http://www.accuray.com/ I had a 4 by 7 cm tumor treated 6 weeks ago and have noticed some improvement in my symptoms. I had some slight fatigue the first week after treatment and some sob and a slight dry cough. Don M

Teri, I am saddened to read of Bill's passing. Please accept my condolences. Don M

Welcome Michelle: Your dad is getting treatment that is intended to do maximum damage to the cancer. It is hard to say how he will do with the side effects. It is always a little harder to do chemo and radiation at the same time. Lots of people have a less intense delivery dose of chemo while on radiation and then move on to stronger chemo after the radiation. Don M

Well, I am not an expert biometrician or any thing, but I think I understand it. It is a relative risk since two groups are being compared. It means that for the 2 given populations one group is 68% more likely to get lung cancer compared to the other group. This speaks to the population as a whole only and not any individual anywhere that has a never smoking relative that got lung cancer. I think it is safe to say though, that you are more likely to get cancer than someone who does not have a first-degree relative that never smoked and got lung cancer. Don M