John75

Karen, Sorry I was away from e-mail for the weekend. I'm not not sure exactly what type of radiation my mother had. Actually I am embarassed because I did not know there were different types. She reacted very well to it though. As for my mother's doctor visits, the doctor had originally scheduled them a month apart. Since her radiation oncologist found the pneumonia she will only go a little less than two weeks until she sees the doctor. I guess that should be alright. I was just nervous that this could delay chemo. She was diagnosed in February and it makes me nervous that so much time has passed with any chemo to treat the lung cancer. Good luck with your radiation treatments. John

Karen, My mother had only one met to the brain. She did not have WBR, just to the spot where the tumor was removed. She was not really sick during the radiation treatment. Just tired, but she's been very tired anyway. My mother's primary care physician is also specializes in oncology so she only sees the one doctor (except for the radiation oncologist during the radiation treatment). It just seems odd to me that her doctor would not want to see her for over a month. I would assume that she would want my mother to check in more frequently. Thanks everyone for the response. John

Hello, My mother just finished three weeks of radiation for her brain mets and is scheduled to start chemo in a couple of weeks for her lungs. Yesterday we found out that she has pneumonia. The doctors said that they caught it early and that with medication she should be fine. Is this common for lung cancer? Does anyone know if there's anything we should be watching for with this? Can she even start the chemo if she has pneumonia? I have so many questions and, as usual, the doctors provide little answers. Also, the radiation oncologist was the one who suggested my mother have a chest x-ray because of her breathing. This was on the last day of radiation. She's not scheduled to see her regular doctor until the 26th of April. By then it will be over a month since she's seen her regular doctor. Does this seem like a long time to anybody? I just can't get it out of my head that if the radiation oncologist didn't catch this on the last day of radiation then we would have waited until the 26th to take my mother to the doctor and the pneumonia would have been much more severe. How often should people be going to the doctor for regular appointments with lung cancer? I apologize if I'm rambling but I really want to thank everyone on this board. I don't post a lot but really appreciate the feedback and reading others posts. It's good to know that there's somewhere to turn when things seem so confusing and scary right now. John

My mother was diagnosed with stage 4 nsclc with mets to brain on 2/10/04. She has already had the tumor removed from her brain and is in the middle of radiation now. She will also have to begin chemo to work on the lung cancer. From reading posts it seems that many people have chemo and radiation at the same time. I'm worried because my mother's doctor is not planning to meet with her again to discuss chemo until 4/26/04. That's over two months since the cancer was diagnosed! Does anyone know if this is common? It seems that we are waiting a long time and I'm worried that the cancer is spreading as we speak because we're not doing anything about it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. John

I've been lurking through this board for about a week but wanted to introduce myself. My mother was diagnosed in February with stage 4 adenocarcinoma with mets to the lymph nodes and brain. She had the brain tumor removed a couple of weeks later and is set to start radiation this week. Obviously this has been a really difficult time but its even harder because my mother does not want to ask any questions. She even cancelled her second opinion. The doctors are not very helpful at giving information and my family is afraid to ask difficult questions because my mother doesn't want to hear the answer. So far her attitude is good and we're afraid that hearing any more negative information will kill her strength right when she needs it most. I'm glad that I found this board because it seems like it will be a place to ask questions when my mother won't. Thanks for listening.