It’s important to remember that everyone responds to chemotherapy differently. Sometimes the same drug will give one person very few side effects and another person will have such a hard time with the drug they need to stop it (I have seen this first hand with a loved one who is undergoing chemotherapy at the same time her friend is also going through the exact same disease - they get the same drugs but have totally different reactions).
So, while being aware that side effects are possible, chemotherapy may not always be as scary as it sounds. You may want to talk to the oncologist about if there is more than one kind of drug available as an option for her kind of disease, and what the most common side effects are with each drug (maybe taking notes during that convo since this can be hard information to absorb under stress), to better understand what your exact options are.
On the issue of a “miracle”, well, I’d want to clarify what exactly the doctor meant by a “positive outcome”: is he thinking in terms of a total cure, or any shrinkage of the tumor at all? With advanced lung cancer, the odds of eradicating the cancer and getting a cure may indeed be unlikely, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any hope at all. Sometimes even if a cure isn’t possible, chemotherapy can beat the cancer back enough to give people precious quality time that they wouldn’t have otherwise had, and that can be a very meaningful positive outcome on its own. In any case, I definitely think your nurse has the right idea.
lv, that’s the most positive thing I’ve heard in quite a while. Thank you! If I knew today that she could go through chemo, with manageable side effects, and get another year of quality time together…I’d get down on my knees and thank God right now.
Wishing you and your wife healing and love through the holiday season and beyond.
I don’t know anything about them, other than I see their commercials all the freaking time, but the Cancer Treatment Centers of America have a team of oncology information specialists available 24/7 who might be able to provide some guidance.
Not sure why the numbers are different, but they’re both toll free and might be able to offer some comforting advice.
You and your family are in my thoughts as well. I am so sorry all of you are having to go through this. I liked what you said about taking both quantity and quality of life into consideration. It must be so painful to have to think that way, but when I have been in similar situations, that kind of thinking made sense to me. Best wishes.
I’m sorry to hear your scary news, jsc1953. I’m keeping you and your family in my thoughts.
The advice to not be afraid to hope was spot-on, IME, so long as you (plural) know what you’re hoping for. My dad, ages ago, was given 6 months to live at the outside from colon cancer that had spread to his liver. He made it to just shy of 3 years, and quite a bit of that time was pretty damned good. The chemo was pretty rugged but that was 20 years ago too. There have been a few advances in medicine since then. He traveled quite a bit and really enjoyed much of that ‘grace’ time.
When inevitably the cancer began to spread again, as we knew it would, the hospice staff kept the pain at bay and helped all of us make it through in our various ways. Dad died gently, cancer be damned. He wasn’t scared, he wasn’t in pain and we were all okay with letting go.
The news about your wife’s health is a shock but it doesn’t mean right now, or everything will be awful. You’ll all just handle things as they come.
Great inspirational story, Veb. I have two similar ones in my family.
When my mother was pregnant with me in 1961, her father went into the hospital for some abdominal surgery of some sort, and when they opened him up, they saw that he had cancer everywhere, so they just closed him back up without even doing what they went in there to do in the first place. They told him he wouldn’t survive long enough to see me, his first grandchild, born. Back then they treated cancer with cobalt, which was certainly not as advanced as anything we treat cancer with today. Well not only did he live to see me born, but he lived another 7 years to see both of my sisters born, as well. I have a lot of wonderful memories of my grandfather.
Then, 20 years ago when my mother’s breast cancer returned, metastasized to her lungs, she was told that without treatment she might have 2 weeks to live, on the outside, up to possibly 2 months. She elected not to go through the radiation and chemo again, and managed to live a normal enough life for the next 8 months that she didn’t even tell anyone (including us) that she was terminal. She survived another 5 months after informing us, only really taking an obvious turn for the worse during the last couple of weeks.
I don’t know you at all, but being a fellow doper and a fellow human being, if it helps even a teeny weeny bit, I want to add myself to the list of those who have expressed their sorrow for you. Sorry man, and I hope you can find the strength from where ever to get through this.
On the positive side, I’m thinking that this is a opportunity to show your love for your wife like never before.
It is completely fair and perfectly ok to balance quality of life with quantity of life. And only you and your wife are in a position to judge. Whatever you do, you will have done it for the best.
I can’t imagine what it must be like to get this news. Anything I can think of to say has already been said. But to repeat, keep us informed and vent as needed. I’ll put you and your wife on my prayer list. I don’t know your names, but God will if I say “jsc1953 and his wife need Your help.”
