Carla

Sounds like great news. Congratulations!

Good news -- prayers on the way.

I am still struggling with the role of being the person that asks the questions and knows the worst -- I think at this point it makes sense for it to be me because my dad is too tired and still wiped out from the surgery to read up on stuff and my mom just doesn't deal anyway. When the surgeon first started telling us in the hospital (day after diagnosis) about this spinal tumor that was threatening paralysis (don't even walk to the bathroom) I felt my brain start to shut down and then something took over and I was able to listen to him -- whereas my mom saw that I was paying attention and let herself shut down for a couple of days. Well, the point is it is a hard role reversal because my dad has always been the person who is organized, knows what is going on, the one to whom we go for advice, so I feel funny taking over some of taht, even though I think they are glad to let me at this point . But I also feel wierd because although I know you can ignore the statistics, I don't think they have much of a grasp of how bad it might be, but then again maybe it won't be all bad -- I am the one to borrow trouble, although I know I shouldn't -- so we are supposed to have this meeting with the oncologist this week where we will get the game plan, and I will go armed with all the questions, and I guess that is how it is going to be for a while. I just hope I will have the wisdom to know when I am getting a good answer/bad answer/etc. This is kind of rambling, too, but this post hit home because I think there is a certain amount of not hitting them will all the possible bad news that is not a bad thing although I don't want to sugar-coat anything, either. I plan on taking my cue from how the oncologist handles the discussion, I guess, and go from there.

Thanks. I agree you have to take the good news where you can get it. The radiologist had some x-rays done on the rib and nothing showed there, but the report says of course the PET can be more sensitive -- but he had had some rib pain the day they did the PET and it is gone, so maybe it was just something wierd. I don't know what else they could do to figure out the discrepency (bone scan?) but will ask the doctor this week when I go with them for the oncologist appointment. No, he's not a candidate for the Fat Club, although glad to not have to watch weight anymore (fat-free milk is now banned from the house) and his appetite isn't what it was, but he's hanging in there. He was having trouble swallowing his pills and a nurse suggested sherbet -- he opted for chocolate ice cream instead and it is working well -- plus gets a few more calories in.

Was thinking about your fishing trip this weekend and glad you had a great time.

Another one for the list: Jesse Owens (olympic track star) - 3-31-80. I just happened on this list and I had to go back and check, but it had struck me because my son did reports on both Jesse Owens and Nat King Cole for school and I thought I remembered both had died of lung cancer. Jesse Owens did smoke, but I also noted when looking him up that he had bronchial issues and pneumonia as a child. (As a matter of fact, I think he started running to overcome being a sickly kid). At least the cause of death is pretty consistent on him.

Well, my dad's PET showed the lung tumor and some lit up at the spinal area where they removed the tumor in surgery, which might just be residual stuff, and possibly one area on a rib. That seems to be better news than it could have been. The slightly wierd thing is that the oncologist we saw today didn't seem to know much of the game plan, but maybe they are still figuring out what it is. his colleague is the one who mentioned possible surgery if the PET was ok. I guess the plan is to finish this round of radiation (so far no bad effects, but only a week into it) and see where we are -- and also the idea seems to be that combining chemo and radiation this close to surgery could just be too much. Which I suppose makes sense. He did give the order to get as many calories in as possible, in any form, which seems to make my dad pretty happy. He was reading literature about adding butter and cream to food and smiling..... Well, I guess it's more hurry up and wait, but at least something is happening.

Hi. I am new to this board but one of the first posts I remember reading was one not long ago about a good day you and Buddy had had, and it stuck in my mind, so I was very sad to read the recent news. I can tell that you guys had something very very special. Maybe another reason you guys stuck in my mind is that my parents had just celebrated THEIR 46th anniversary about 2 weeks before my dad's diagnosis. Anyway, I wanted to pass on my best wishes and will pray for you.

Wow. I am relatively new to this but your description of your dad (upbeat, positive) reminded me of mine. Of course you have all been through a lot more than we have (we just started and he hasn't even been staged yet, and I know that good news can easily be followed by unexpected bad) but I appreciate what you said about this making you prioritize.

I'm happy to report that we had a good weekend. My dad got his port put in Friday and seems to really be bouncing back from the spine surgery. He has managed to get up for longer periods and is stretching out the pain medication, using less and less. Today he went to church and we managed a walk down the street. I guess this week will be the calm before whatever, since it will probably be a week or so before they do the PET scan, but that will give him a little more time to build up strength for whatever is next. Another good sign, I guess, is that he isn't coughing blood anymore, but who knows what that means. Still has a great attitude and continues to crack jokes, something he always did anyway. Thanks again for your support.

Well it was comforting to hear from so many people and I think this is going to be a good place. We are all trying to be positive but it isn't always easy. My dad is the most optimistic (and sane) person in the family. For instance, I keep worrying about things getting out of hand before he can start treatment, having seen the stories about people who went downhill after diagnosis and were gone in a short time. Of course, he seems in pretty good shape so maybe not. But they are putting in a port tomorrow so taht as soon as it's time to start chemo it will be in there, and the PET scan will be scheduled as soon as practical, given the surgery. Then my mom worries that he doesn't seem as "peppy" as he did in the hospital (this is still 10 days after major spinal surgery) and then she gets me worried, but they are going to the surgeon for followup visit today so hopefully he will set her mind at rest -- I am suspecting it is the pain killer (different than what he had in hospital) and muscle relaxant as much as anything. Then there is all the second-guessing. He had some bad back pain about a year ago and his dr. did a chest x-ray, saw nothing, and recommended physical therapy, which worked enough, or got the pain down enough that he sort of gave up the exercises. But then it got worse again in the last 2 months (I didn't even know about that). So you have to wonder if this was the spinal tumor a year ago and how much of a difference it would have made if they'd caught it -- but I guess that's not really productive because it is now today and we have to deal with today's situation. Plus, it seems like physical therapy wouldn't have made it feel better if it were a tumor, but who even knows. I guess I just worry that if it has been spreading around all that time it may have gone elsewhere, too, but who knows, is what I have also learned in my short education on this crummy disease. The other good thing is that my brother, who was an over the road truck driver, just quit doing that, so he is also in Florida, about an hour from them, and so we were both able to be there the weekend of the surgery -- and he is also available to do things like drive to appointments, etc., when needed. The other good thing is that they are in Orlando, so have probably access to better medical care than they would have in the small town where they lived about 5 years ago. Well, anyway, thanks to everyone for the support. You guys are great.

Well I have been reading messages on this site for about a week now and figured I better sign up. About 2 weeks ago my mom called to tell me that my dad (76) had been coughing some blood and that his doctor was sending him for an MRI. Turns out she meant CT scan and that there had been something suspicious on an x ray. The day after the CT scan was done, he went back to his doctor, who told him he had lung cancer. This was a major shock to everyone -- excellent health, quit smoking when I was a baby (45 years ago), etc., etc. We were going to go over just to visit for the weekend (had moved to Florida from Ga. about a year before to be closer to family, thank God; they are now only 2 hours away instead of eight) and then we got another call that his doctor wanted him to check in to the hospital to start tests. I figured, ok, the sooner the better. This was Friday. What was actually going on was that the CT scan showed another tumor on the 3rd thoracic vertebrae that seemed to be putting pressure on the spinal cord. They did some more scans at teh hospital and a neurosurgeon came up to ask questions and said that after looking at the MRI/CT Scan the pressure was so bad he was amazed he was functioning and that they needed to do surgery to relieve the pressure or he could be paralyzed from teh waist down; he wanted to do it the next day. Didn't seem to be much of a choice, so they did the surgery. They removed the tumor, or, as I've learned, what they could see of it, and did a spinal fusion. It had eaten away a good deal of that one vertebrae. Pathology showed that the spine tumor originated in the lung, which was not good but not a real surprise, as I guess that is how it usually goes. Anyway, it is one of the forms of NSCLC. The oncologist wants to do a PET scan to see if it has spread anywhere else and if it hasn't she is talking surgery, which, from what I've read here and elsewhere, is optimistic. They haven't done staging yet. The lung tumor is just over 3 cm. They can't do it (PET) until any inflammation from teh surgery goes down so we are talking maybe another 2 weeks. Meanwhile of course he has to recover from major surgery, which is no small thing, but he is in otherwise good shape and, if you can beat this thing with a positive attitude, then he is the one to do it. He always focuses on the positive -- for instance, when the doctor told him the bad news about the spine tumor (there had been some small chance it was something else besides lung cancer) he focused on her telling him that now they have drugs to make chemo tolerable, and after she left, he said, Oh, I forgot to ask when I could go back to work (he is retired but does volunteer work full time), and when she said he'd be able to work thru the chemo once the surgeon said it was ok, he said taht was the best news yet. Anyway, reading all the messages here, there are things taht are encouraging and things that are scary and this seems like a good place. WE are all kind up up and down -- it all happened so fast and the surgery stuff was so drastic that we all had to deal with that first and leave thinking about the long term stuff for later. I can't help thinking that it has to be a good thing that they managed to catch the spine thing in time so there must be a reason for that. I am hoping that that won't be the only good thing. Well, this has been a pretty long message so I'll sign off for now, but I think I'll be back often.