Mom has Lung Cancer

[schwehmjm]

Hi All:

I am new here.

My Mom was diagnosed with adenocarcinoma around the end of July 2011. By the end of August 2011 she was needing assistance to walk and was on Oxygen. During this time, my parents went to a large cancer center in Houston where they took a biopsy to see if she has any of the major mutations and would be a candidate for the new lung cancer medications.

Doctors kept telling us that we did not need to be in such a hurry to do chemo since the cancer she had was not too aggressive.

By the end of Sept and the beginning of October of 2011, Mom was getting worse (massive blood clots in her legs and other places and fluid build up in the chest) and still noresults from the biopsy in Houston. So, my parents decided to do chemo with Avastin (I believe) and something else.

The side effects from the Avastin were pretty brutal. It has beentwo weeks since her first chemo treatment and my Mom is only now getting her strength back. During this time some of the doctors told my Dad that they should consider hospice and that the tumor in my Mom's lung had reached the size of a grapefruit. In addition, the cancer was spreading to her other lung and is in her lymph nodes too.

Today, the oncologist told my Mom not to come back to him for another month as my Mom is severely malnourished and not strong enough for another chemo treatment.

We are concerned if she will even make it another month.

And, the large cancer center in Houston will not return our calls to give us any information on the biopsy results.

Any suggestions?

[Alan]

Over a month and no biopsy results? No return calls from her Drs? It's a large cancer center in Houston? None of this sounds right, get her to the other large cancer center in Houston for another opinion. Sending her to hospice without some further evaluation doesn't seem right to me.