Oh No | Cancer has spread/Metastasized

DanielD

Well, it’s only fair to report the bad with the good. There are miracles out there, folks who had less than a year and a decade later they’re still humming along.
Doesn’t look like I’ll be one of them, though Lord help me, hope just can’t help but spring eternal.
I was diagnosed Stage 3a lung cancer in October 2018. January 2019 began chemoradiation. About a month into it my thoracic surgeon opined that resectioning carried odds so unfavorable that he recommended against it. So I completed a full 7 weeks of the chemoradiation.
April 2019 I began immunotherapy with Durvalumab by Imfinzi, the relatively new wonder brew that passed what was called the Pacific Trial with the best results for some time of anything new for my particular type of cancer.
It was rough going. Bouts of shortness of breath, debilitating fatigue. Interrupted the immunotherapy in I believe it was November. CT scans showed cancer disappeared from one of 2 lymph nodes but because of radiation clouding it was hard to know if original nodule was decreasing or increasing in size.
It was increasing. Rapidly. PET scan showed definite size increase in original cancerous nodule and definite presence in another lymph node.
December 29th 2019 I spent the day with my grandsons at a theme park.
December 31st I was bronched and biopsied.
January 1st 2020 I was hospitalized: pneumonia, pneumonitis, afibbed, my body just broke down and was in hospital for 6 weeks, released to physical therapy rehab for 10 days where I learned to walk again, do steps, work muscles that had been dormant for 6 weeks.
Released from rehab and almost immediately my body shut down. Today I cannot walk, saw my oncologist in a wheel chair today, can’t get from wheel chair to commode and back without gasping for air.
Bottom line: we do nothing and I’ve got 3 or 4 months.
We do selective chemotherapy and it will buy me more time but at the expense of further damage to my body, ie decease in quality of life.
This happened so quickly. I’m stunned. I KNEW I was going to beat this thing.
Life with the last love of my life, aint gonna happen.
Getting much more involved with 3 and 6 yr old grandsons, aint gonna happen.
Reconnecting with my sister whose life went off into a very different direction than mine, aint gonna happen.
Starting a couple of projects that got my juices flowing, aint gonna happen.
This isn’t feeling sorry for myself, it’s just facing head on the reality of the unthinkable.
It truly sucks.

Kerrieliz

Thank you for sharing your experience, may God Bless you.

2943

I am shocked as you are. This ‘ugly’ just jumps in and twists our lives up. Hugs to you, my friend.