SDianneB

2 things I was told at diagnosis that sealed the smoking issue for me: 1) That smoking destroys things in the windpipe that are needed for keeping it cleaned out, and without it, look forward to lots of coughing, and for the treatment to much less effective. 2) That continuing to smoke probably wouldn't have any affect on the cancer they'd just found, but at the same time, I'd be working on another one. Did I want to go through all this again? Di

Most people are SHOCKED when you tell them Lung Cancer Kills more then........etc.etc. The first thing they say is: No Breast cancer is. Well..... then I say to them, noooooo, more people are dx.d with breast cancer, but more die from lung cancer then breast cancer. Well, you get my point. Most people honestly don't pay attention until the big C knocks at there door. Make's sense to me!!! (Connie) Ditto from me. Di

Oh, I just hate it when little kidlets are sick. Bummer. Here are lots of prayers that he recovers fast, so grandma can continue to spoil him rotten. Di

I have to echo what the others have said. I've changed oncologists once already, and may do so again if I think I need to. Like Katie said -- you want a doctor who will fight for you as a patient. My follow-up visits got to be a chest x-ray and a brush off by a nurse practitioner, and I put that to a stop immediately -- mostly because of what I've learned from people on this board, and from my personal research into what is usual and reasonable follow up care. The point is, IMO, to get at least a 2nd opinion. And if at any point you and/or your dad have reservations, speak up! They are being paid a LOT of money to take care of you, and if they aren't doing that, then you can take your money elsewhere at any time. My very best to you. I hope you keep us informed. Di

Wow. You made my day! Do you realize what an uplift it is just to see your name on a post? Then reading your marvelous words is an extra bonus on top of that. I'm so glad you are hanging in there. You are a real role model for the rest of us. Take care. Di

Yanno, my vision sucks overall. I'm 52 -- need new glasses! That was on the table when all this cancer stuff started, and the radiation oncologist said I should wait a few months after the PCI to get an eye exam, and now it's time - for sure! After all the crapola I've gone through with the oncologist, I'm not even mentioning this. I'm just going to make an appointment and if the eye doc sees anything wrong, he can tell her. If I tell the oncologist first, she'll want to run me through a gazillion scans and tests before even addressing the initial problem. This is an oncologist who apparently doesn't think a cancer patient can have any other medical problem besides cancer. Nine hours to get a Rx for a bladder infection, a month to get my stopped up bile duct treated. But, I digress. Ha! By all means find out what this is, but try not to talk yourself into the worst case scenario, ok? Leave that to the gloom and doom docs! Di

Sharon, by all means. You go and take care of yourself. Let yourself grieve. Do so in the knowledge that many of us followed you and your dad through your posts and you helped many people by sharing your own experiences. You left a tremendous gift to us all. Of course it's your time now. God bless. Di

Awww rats. Sorry to hear this, Mouse. Keep your chin up, hang in there, and all that. Just pick any 3 from all the cliches! Then, seriously, I wish you well in your battle. And I'm glad you have docs who get to it and take care of you quickly. Di

Addie is correct -- I had PCI not WBR. Fewer treatments, lower dose radiation, etc. Don't know, but suspect the side effects would increase with the dosage and duration of treatments. I didn't have many side effects -- got a mohawk hairdo when my hair fell out, was a little tired for a while, but that was about it. I will say that if it ever comes to a point where I have to have more head radiation, I will be going the route of having my head taped to the table instead of the mask. I "endured" the mask as best I could with the PCI, but won't do that again. If they won't treat me because of it, so be it. I'm not the "average" patient -- in the brace they rest your head/neck in while you're lying on the table and with a strap across the forehead, I know not to wiggle around. Another possibility is that they cut the nose and mouth out on the mask and I'll do that, but not the whole mask. Not again. Nope. Di

Doug, that's really sweet - and your usual great sense of humor shines through! Sadly, I fear that Mr. Jennings battle will be largely secretive. As with most celebrities, they have the resources to hide away and battle their demons. I may be wrong, but I just don't see him spearheading any great efforts on behalf of people with lung cancer. Instead, I see him keeping things private, and the next we hear may be of his demise, or maybe a remission when he shows back up in his chair on the nightly news a few times. Has anyone heard anything about Peter Jennings since the first few days after his announcement? I surely haven't. Contrast that with Tony Snow from Fox News who has colon cancer, and recently had surgery. On their web site, he's kept a running account of what's going on with him, people write to him, and he answers their questions about his treatment and experiences. Di

I just hope they can keep her pain under control. Going through all this is one thing -- having too much pain with it is quite another. Thanks for the update. We'll be thinking of you all. Di

Jen, my very best to you in thoughts and prayers -- and your entire family -- as you help your mother get through this. Di

I'm with Addie on this one -- especially the wine part! This just really ticks me off -- this disease just grabs us by the short hairs now and then, and won't let go. Well, we are humans, by golly -- we do have some capacity to fight back, and you've got plenty of what it takes to do just that. I'm sure you're devastated right now, as anyone would be, so I hope you can have a few days to soak all this in and gather your resolve for your future. Yes, your future. You DO have one of those. And no one knows that yours will be any more or less than their own. So, go for it. Di

Ginny -- good luck with the move! My advice would be to hide in the closet until it's done (by others, of course!), but that's just me! Di

Well, maybe. My mother and I have been going through somewhat the same rigamarole within the health care system over the past several months. It's quite amazing, actually, how they can stand up for each other, cover up things, suddenly alter their story to match the other guy's story so they at least sound like (almost) they know what they are talking about. Out of the many, many really GOOD people and GOOD practitioners within the system, even some of them are so caught in the system that they begin to become more of an obstacle. My mother is 91. She's in relatively good health, but all the "specialists" keep tossing her around from one to the other. My guess is that they are afraid she will die, and none of them want that on their watch. Understandable I guess, but it isn't helping her out much. As for myself, I'm still a bit unhappy that it took a full month to get any help for my gallbladder and bile duct, even though I was getting sicker and sicker right in front of their very eyes. It was the 4th doctor, the GI referral, that finally did something. Before then, they'd look at me, tell me I had yellow eyes, give me more pills and send me on to the next doc, more scans and tests along the way, and days/weeks in between it all -- just drawing it out until I was almost off my feet before it was taken care of. I have a scan next week to see if anything has changed since the last one. I'm thinking after that scan I'm going to ditch the old PCP (friend, or supposed friend) and the Oncologist if there is no cancer present. I figure that if I broke a leg, I'd be sent to an Orthopedic doc. Once the leg was taken care of and healed, I wouldn't be going back to the Otrhopod for the flu or my acid reflux problem. So, I can't see a real need to see an Oncologist if there is no cancer present. Keep in mind that I have such faith in the Pulmonologist I go to (the one who actually eyeballs the scans and knows as much or more about all this as any of the Oncologists I've seen). I can follow up with him, and if cancer comes back, then he can do what we did before - refer me to the Oncologist. I've really just had it "up to here" with Oncologists who wring their hands, need scan after scan to make a decision, and then when it turns out to be something not related to cancer, they have that deer in the headlights look. In short, I'd like someone to diagnose and treat me -- not putz around looking for cancer because that's their line of work. Just some thoughts I've had lately. Di

God bless you, Cathy. Not what we want to hear, but hospice is a good thing when needed. I wish you peace and no pain, and strength to cope with all the changes in your life right now. Di

Doug, I sympathize. I'm in a similar situation -- sick myself, and my 91 year old mother has been ill and is in Texas. We can't be with each other, so the most I can do is talk to her frequently. She's doing much better and things aren't as dire with her as we thought a few weeks ago, but still -- at age 91 things can go south in a heartbeat. She's in good hands with her granddaughter who is an RN, and has home health care set up so that they have some relief. As for me, I have no idea what I'll do when that time comes. Hope my kitties learn to open the fridge by then, I guess! Di

Bo asks: "Besides how can being in the sun and feeling good, hurt." One word - melanoma. Or so they'd have you believe. Sunscreen notwithstanding, what perks me up and makes me feel the best is feeling the warm sun on my face in the mornings. I treasure the walk from my parking place into where I work on those days. Being downtown, the buildings hide a lot of the sun later in the day, but the mornings are the best. No doubt there are benefits as well as dangers to many things -- moderation seems to be the key. Di

Betty, the words are impossible to find. I just want you to be comfortable and with people you care about and who care about you during this time. All of us are "with" you as well. You are a woman full of grace and spirit, and have touched my life in a positive way through this forum. God bless you in the rough days ahead. Di

Glad you brought this up. I had small doses of steroids as part of the pre-meds when I had chemo, but that was it -- no Rx, no ongoing dose, nothing. When I had the PCI, the radiation oncologist very strongly recommended to me that I not take steroids unless the side effects of PCI were worse than they would be from the steroids. Since I had virtually no side effects from the PCI, I never needed the steroids. Every doctor I've seen so far is very cautious about giving steroids. I asked once about steroids because so many people seemed to be taking them, and was basically told "consider yourself lucky that you don't need them." Many years ago I had Bell's palsy, and part of the treatment for that was steroids for about 2 weeks or so. It started out with the largest dose, then tapered off until the end of the Rx. I had the swollen face, appetite that would stop, etc. But along with the other treatment (PT, B-12 injections daily) it took care of the Bell's palsy. Since the cancer diagnosis, the only steroids I've had were the 4 pre-med doses. Guess I should consider myself lucky. Di

Cancer appears to be just one of those ugly diseases that dominates a few generations. Hopefully, they will find cures and gradually take it down. When my mother was a girl, they worried about the flu, diphtheria, polio, smallpox, TB, and things we more or less take for granted as being eradicated nowadays. She had a favorite cousin with a heart defect that would be considered minor now -- but he had to live most of his life as an invalid, and died in his early 30s from it. When doing genealogy work, I've come across more than one story of a family devastated by illness -- an epidemic of typhoid rushes through a small community and takes out almost all the inhabitants just like that. A family of 7 totally wiped out, or leaving a few to mourn the loss of the others. They had the same fears when someone would hear the dread word "smallpox" and they would all try to hide out and avoid the near certainty of a miserable death. I feel sure that disease has roots in our environment, although not always quite as overtly as some would have me believe. But through it all, I have supreme confidence in the earth. It is reslient, it reinvents itself and adapts to the many changes thrust on it by the vast solar system in which it resides. Man? I'm not so sure about. The earth? Mother Earth will prevail. Count on it. Mankind just came along and became so highly advanced that it thinks it's the most important thing to ever set foot on the earth, and deserves to be around forever. Could be the ultimate practical joke, no? Di

I have an aunt, by marriage, who had lung cancer over 30 years ago. I have no idea what kind, but they took out over half of one lung, then gave her some kind of chemo, and she's been fine ever since. About 5 years after she was diagnosed, they found the exact same cancer in her mother, in almost the same place, and did the same kind of surgery/chemo. She lived another 10 years or so, and died of natural causes. Go figure. Di

I was told the same thing -- you "will" lose your hair in about 2 1/2 weeks after the first chemo. It didn't happen. I think it's related to the drugs though, and the ones he's having may be more likely to cause hair loss. I finally did lose my hair from the PCI, but not from chemo. I was told by the oncology nurses in the hospital to not use a razor on any part of my body until I was done with treatment. They were cautious about bacteria getting into my system while your counts are low. They also gave me strict instructions about frequent hand washing, and keeping everything clean in my bathroom. Even though you may not realize it, your system can be really "down" while you're getting chemo, and the least little thing can cause HUGE problems. One of the nurses said that most people they see who get infections get them from their own bodies -- like e-coli from not washing their hands, etc. Some of the things we live with daily when we are "normal" can sneak in and cause havoc when our resistance is down. I'm not an expert, but this is what I was told when I was on chemo. Hope it helps. Di

Drug/alcohol addiction is considered to be a "disability" under the federal law, if it meets the criteria -- primarily that a person was diagnosed and treated with the disorder. In general, "disability" was once (loosely) defined as a condition that would hinder or prevent a person from doing the same job in the same way as a "normal" person -- such as a blind person requiring braille, hearing impairments, etc. It's changed a lot with court rulings over the years. I can't see it not being classified as such if it went to court, but when you're in someone's office and they give you 20 reasons why they aren't hiring you and you feel like there is only one "real" reason, it's a different story. Becky is right though - as usual! If you don't try, you for sure won't have any luck! I hope you do. If health insurance wasn't my major concern, I probably would too. Di

The laws protect against discrimination due to disability. You'd have to have a recognized disability that you've been treated for in order to be covered by the law. Your problem is going to be insurance coverage, unless you can keep what you have now through COBRA until the new one kicks in if you change jobs. And, even then, check the new policy closely and find out EXACTLY how it handles pre-existing conditions. (Sometimes there is a limitation on benefits for pre-existing conditions, sometimes an exclusion. Also find out how long the pre-existing condition period is.) Employers are not supposed to discriminate against people for a number of reasons laid out in the law, but that doesn't mean they won't, and cover it up by calling it something else. By all means though, be honest. Don't falsify anything on an application -- it can come back and bite you later on. I've had the same thoughts myself when I've thought about poking my head back into the job market. I figure I'll have a better chance at winning the Powerball. Di