New Member

[Cheri N]

I was diagnosed with Stage II one year ago. I have never smoked, worked with toxic substances or have a family history of cancer. I do have heart issues however. Fortunately I was able to have robotic surgery to remove the cancer. Upon analysis what was thought to be a lymph node turned out to be a second tumor and it also was removed. I underwent 30 radiation treatments and 3 chemo treatments. I was initially supposed to have 4 treatments however the chemo caused me to have serious fatigue. Because of my age, will be 75 in May, my oncologist didn’t recommend having the last treatment and started me on Tagresso, a targeted therapy. The main side effect is fatigue. I am grateful for the care that I am receiving from Stanford Health.

[LouT]

Cheri,

Welcome to our forums.  Glad to see you, but sorry you need us.  Please look around and also ask any questions you may have.  As an aside we do have a forum dedicated to different treatments called "Immunotherapy" and it can be found here.

Lou

[Tom Galli]

Cheri,

Welcome here.

I do hope your Targeted Therapy (Tagresso) continues to be effective.

Stay the course.

Tom

[Karen_L]

Hi Cheri,

Welcome aboard, although I'm so sorry for your reasons for joining. That chemo and radiation fatigue is no joke, especially on top of recovery from surgery. I was not lucky enough to have surgery but I did have 30 radiation treatments and 6 concurrent sessions of chemo, followed by a disastrous attempt at immunology. Then I started on Tagrisso. It'll be two years for me this spring, and I plan on being around for much longer.

Since you were ay Stanford, I assume they did biomarker testing? 

Welcome,

Karen 

[Kamoto]

Dublin CA?  Hah, I spent the past 20 years living in East Dublin near Dougherty Elementary.  I moved to Bozeman MT to escape the crazy lockdowns of the pandemic.  My chemo/radiation trips to Bozeman Health were only 15 mins and six miles away.  I can't imagine driving over the bridge every day to get to Stanford from Dublin. 

I have to add, your a trooper to go through chemo at 75.  The ONLY reason I did chemo/radiation was I would eventually choke to death with no warning that it was about to happen (Stage II Esophagus and Stage IV Lung).  Stupid chemo nearly killed me at 58.  If I didn't have a forty pound stomach I likely would have been a goner.  If the stupid lung cancer requires chemo/radiation the answer from me would be no.  I'm one and done with that toxicity.  So good on you for going through it at 75.  I'm impressed.