Daddysgirl78 Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 A warm hello to everyone in the Lungevity Community. I'm really happy to be here! My whole world has been flipped upside down as my first love has been diagnosed with Cancer. My 63 y/o Daddy (Yes, I'm 36 and call him that, Forever Daddy's Girl:) was diagnosed with Stage 3a, Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer on 2/5/14 and has a "Pancoast Tumor" on his top right lung. A little background, he worked in an asbestos filled auto plant for almost 38 years and was a social smoker for a good part of his life before quitting in 1999. After we lost my 4 y/o nephew to eye cancer, it was really eye opening for both him and my Mother and I'm proud to say they never picked another cigarette up! After his port placement, aggressive radiation and chemotherapy began. As of today he's done 32 treatments of intense 66 grey radiation and (4 cycles) 8 hour chemotherapy. His chemotherapy consist of: Cisplatin and Vinorelbine along with his fluids and nausea medication. He's currently taking gabapentin twice a day to ease some nerve pain from the location of the tumor on his bronchial plexus but he hasn't been taking PAIN medications for almost 2 months now and hasn't gotten sick from chemo at all! He's amazing. We had an appointment with his Oncologist and he reported the radiation and chemo did it's job! From there we had an appointment with a thoracic surgeon who said that due to the position of his tumor he would have to remove 3-4 ribs and some of his vertebrae. That was pretty tough to hear and immensely scary for my Daddy! The Surgeon also is getting a Neurosurgeon on board as it "maybe" invading his spine and if that's the case he may not be operable. He went for an MRI of his Spine on Friday and our appointment is Wednesday to get the final word. We hope an pray he's operable and I wanted to reach out in hopes to find other people with his type of tumor or Stage 3 that underwent surgery and how recovery was...? Any advice and experiences would be very helpful. We're all broken hearted but staying positive and optimistic. Thank you for taking the time to read our story... Jennifer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donna G Posted June 9, 2014 Share Posted June 9, 2014 Hi Jennifer. I know you read my post I made in March. You know I had a Pancoast tumor and have survived. Sorry to hear your Dad is going through this also but am so glad you found us! I never worked in an asbestos plant but my husband was in the Navy for years and was in the shipyard assigned to ships being built. He would come home and I washed his uniforms. No one told us about the asbestos back then. Keep us posted. Donna G Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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