Lorirossi1 Posted August 23, 2022 Share Posted August 23, 2022 Hi all, My 77 yo father was diagnosed in June with stage 3 NSCLC in his upper right lobe. The cancer is also squamous and his number is far too low to qualify for immunotherapy (-1%). Surgery is not possible and doctors felt that a short course of radiation(5 days) would help his case. Just as we were about to begin treatment, dad started having balance issues and headaches. CT scan revealed last week that he has one spot on his Occipital lobe. MRI was done last night to determine if there are more spots. Naturally we were devastated by this recent development and so here I am on this forum wanting to learn more as to what potentially might lie ahead. Thank you for allowing me to join your community! Lori Justin1970 and LA NYC 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LouT Posted August 24, 2022 Share Posted August 24, 2022 Hi Lori,, Sorry to hear about your father, but glad you found our forums. There is a lot of experience and knowledge here as well as hope for the future. Until you get more of the data on diagnosis there are a couple of things I'd like to share with you: 1. A blog titled; "10 Steps to Surviving Lung Cancer; From a Survivor", and it can be found here. 2. One of our forums is for folks and family like you. It is our "Caregiver's Support Center" and it is on this page. Please keep us updated and ask any specific questions you may have. Lou Justin1970 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin1970 Posted August 24, 2022 Share Posted August 24, 2022 Hi Lori Welcome here and sorry you have to be but this a great community and very helpful someone will come along with some good advice for you, my cancer spread to my brain and I had to have gamma knife radiosurgery done on them which is working well, I also have low pdl1 so not a candidate for immunotherapy and because the cancer had spread no surgery either, I have had chemotherapy and radiotherapy and fingers crossed everything seems to working at the moment goodluck with everything All the best Take care Justin x LouT, LA NYC and Izzy 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Galli Posted August 24, 2022 Share Posted August 24, 2022 Lori, Welcome here. We call those "spots" in the brain, "brain mets". Unfortunately, they are more common than not but fortunately they are easily and painlessly dealt with using specialized precision radiation. Zapping that met or those mets will be a piece of cake (funny I just realized that the word mets also applies to the NY Mets and being a Philadelphia Phillies baseball fan, I'd really like to see those Mets zapped). I'm a squamous cell guy, diagnosed in February 2004, and had five lines of treatment to arrest my lung cancer and many recurrences after supposedly successful treatment. Two take aways from this point. Squamous cell can be hard to wrestle but if I can live, so can your dad. We have lots of Canadians on this forum and that is important. There are differences between treatment availability in Canada's National Health System and the insurance-based US system. Canadian members should be able to help you navigate treatment availability problems in your national system. Stay the course. Tom LouT and BridgetO 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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