I just wanted to take a minute to thank each of you for the time that you spend posting to this board. I personally have never experienced cancer, but both my wifes parents have been stricken with this dreaded disease. Her mother has been given only a few months at most after a 18 month battle with ovarian cancer. The cancer has now spread to her liver and abdomen wall. She has stopped all treatments and now is on hospice.

My wifes dad has "moderately - differentiated squamous cell carcinoma" in the "left lingular lobe of lung" apparently close to his heart. The tumor appeard to be te size of a golf ball and has not spread outside the lung. They estimate that he has had the cancer for about two years. The doctors did tell him that what he had did appear to be a "slow" growing cancer. My father in law has had 35 radiation treatments as well as several chemo treatments. We are waiting to hear on the success of these treatments.

Does any of this sound familiar? With what I have read lung cancer is very difficult to deal with once spread, but what about when it is contained within the lung? If the treatment has been successful dad has said that he is going to have the thing removed, including the lung if necessary. My wife is completely devistated over this situation and the thought of loosing both parents is almost more than she can comprehend. She and her Mom are best friends and she is not accepting the soon to come loss of her Mom very well.

One other thing, I read several posts from Hope in Memphis, TN. I live very close to Memphis and Hope if you would like to talk or have a way that my Wife could contact you it would be so appreciated.

Thanks again to all of you for the support that you give and may Gods comforting hands surround each of you.

Stacy.

I am so sorry for what you and your wife are going through - I know the pain all too well. It is my story. This month would have been 18 months that mom had been fighting the cancer (she made it 17 but the doctors gave her 18 months - they gave my dad 3 months and he made it 2 1/2 - the docs were pretty well on target when they estimated my parents)-

As you know I just lost both of them within 15 days of each other - it is still heartbreaking- I still reach for the phone several times to call them. If your wife would like to talk I certainly wouldn't mind - I am not sure of the rules of posting our numbers and personal email's but I will try.. my email is dkbruce1@aol.com - you guys can email me (let me know in the subject line it is you).

It is very hard to realize when someone tells you to not loose hope but at the same time don't waste time by thinking you will have tomorrow. If I have learned anything from this it is that the cliche' "we aren't promised a tomorrow" is definitely true. I am now living my life with my children and husband like I may not be here tomorrow - I leave nothing unsaid.

The last couple of weeks I spent with mom and dad I made them tell me lots of stories (some I taped)- we grew closer than ever during this time.

I am thankful that God helped me to be strong for them and to care for them and comfort them when they needed it - looking back I don't know how I did it. He definitely (as the poem says) carried me through the rough spots.

I know your wife can't imagine being ready - neither could I - but when her parents are ready, maybe she can help them to get everything in order - and in the end, even your wife will be ready for it. It will never be easy but she will be ready.

You have my deepest prayers - it is a terrible road to travel - to worry about your parents dying and still having to do your day to day tasks - and trying to somewhat function normally. If I can help it would be a pleasure. Hope B.

Obviously I feel a great sadness and concern for your wife and her situation and look for a post from the two of you every time I visit the board - please let us know how they are doing. I thought I would post and get this thread back up there so maybe you would see it. Yall are in my prayers daily. Hope B.

Thanks Hope for the reply. My wifes mom is not doing well. She now sleeps about 20 hours a day. She is not in any pain and is very alert once awake. She does not eat very much at all. She has started talking at times about her funeral and who she wants to inherit what. It is very sad. My wife is holding up fairly good on the outside, but inside she is hurting so bad. I can see it in her eyes. The tears don't come as often but they are there.

Her Dad did not get a very good report on his lung cancer. It appears that the radiation did not shrink the tumor as much as desired so they have resumed his chemo treatments (not the radiation). Is there a limit to the amount of radiation that a person can take. The tumor is still to large to remove. He is determained to live long enough to take care of his wife, but I am not sure about past that. We will take one day at a time. That is all that we can do at this point.

I did try to send you an email but I could not get it to deliver ( some problem with our server at work). I hope you are doing ok. Please keep my family in your prayers. Thanks.

Stacy.