thank you all so much for your kind and encouraging replies! we have great hope for the tarceva--he's in a clinical study so his first scan will be in 9 weeks. isaid he started on feb 3, but i was confused. it was actually the 10th, just two days ago, so no side effects yet. right now he's recovering from the pleurodesis. he's a bit better each day, but it has been very difficult.
i'm sure many of you have had the same experience: he is a very vital, active, healthy man, and all of those things seem to have changed in the wink of an eye. hopefully tarceva will stabilize things and he can get back to something of his old routines.
i am so glad that i found this site!