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