Why Give Her Radiation?

[paperback]

So my mom is stage iv NSCLC. They removed the brain met and are focused now on chemo for the lung tumor. She is currently in patient and was going to be released tomorrow. She had some swelling near her collar bone and a little trouble breathing so they did a new scan. The scan was OK, no new mets. Today she called me and said that they wanted to do radiation on the lung (which they did tonight and will continue for 2 weeks) My question is why??? The Dr. said he would do only chemo for months then evaluate radiation or surgery. Why would they do radiation tonight? Is this a bad sign?

[JB]

Paperback. After they removed Col's brain tumor they did 15 whole brain radiation treatments as well as 15 lund radiation treatments concurrently, while she was doing her chemo. Seems to be a normal occurance. Hopefully it relieves some of her symptoms.

[Ry]

I think it's a good sign. Radiation should help kill the lung tumor in conjunction with the chemo. If you read profiles - you will notice it's pretty common to start with radiation and chemo.