JanMarie, how is your mom doing? - Cancer: Lung Message Board

angelmama39 · 11-05-2006, 06:29 AM

Please send her our love and prayers..........

Anne Marie

Janmarie2 · 11-05-2006, 09:49 AM

Anne Marie Thanks . Right now I am back home in Santa Barbara as I have to work the weekend but when I left for home on Friday she was starting to eat from the decadron the doctor put her on and was even perkier so we shall see. I will let you know more when I go back down this week. I hope you and your mom are having a good weekend. If I haven't told you yet do an internet search on Cyberknife as that could be a possible option for your mom and It is les invasive then surgery and not as damaging to healthy tissue as normal radiation, Very short recovery time too. If you are now only dealing with one tumor in her lung and it is shrinking and nothing new is cropping up she would probably be a good candidate for it. Check it out, the doctors doing it tend to be very helpful will look at records and CT's for free and let you know if she would benefit from it, Don't just ask your oncologist about it as alot of them do not know much about it as we found out. Take care JanMarie

angelmama39 · 11-05-2006, 04:04 PM

janmarie,

thank you so much for that information. i truly feel you were put here for many reasons. from what i am reading, you really have helped many people.

i am glad the steroid is helping your mom. it would be nice if something just "slept" with your moms liver........you don't know.

yes, i have heard of cyberknife, but of course, i am reluctant to ask many questions to the oncologist in front of my mom. She doesn't even know that her cancer has "stages", she knows so little about the severity of her cancer. The comprehensive center she goes to doesn't give any more additional info to the patient other than what they need to know. Of course they would never hold anything back if she asked, but she doesn't ask. (we do) behind closed doors.

Her oncologist PA, has been a bit gloomy with me. I once said "when will she be off her chemo treatments"? (this was before her 30% shrinkage....and she said...." she won't be".....I am still hearing those words, as it has entered my psychie..............But just here alone, I am hearing stage IV candidates stopping their chemo. Even if it is a short time.

We have an app't tomorrow with the oncologist to just check her (as they do after every chemo).............I will try to ask. I am reluctant though, as if they say "no", I don't want mom to get discouraged as she so wants to be off the chemo.

Is 30% really good after 2 chemos? what did your mom do after her 1st 2?

What do you think her oncologist meant when he said if she got additional shrinkage they would have a medical conference with other dr's to see what the next step is? Do you think it is surgery or cyberknife? What else could they mean?

((((((((((((hugs))))))))))

Angel

Janmarie2 · 11-05-2006, 06:48 PM

Angel, I only have a few minutes before I must leave for work so I will keep this short just be aware that some oncologist know nothing about cyberknife but they probably will not tell you that. My mom's argued with me for 20 minutes saying they could not do cyberknife on liver mets despite the fact I told him they can and that I had spoken to the cyberknife doctor at Stanford about it. The oncologist said well you must have have misunderstood him! Having worked with doctors for many years I am not at all intimidated by them so did not back down as I knew which one of us was right. When he finally understood this he finally admitted to me that his speciality is chemo therapy and that he knows very little about treatment with radiation including cyberknife.He then sent us to see the HMO's radiology oncologist and I will not even go there as it was a joke as she had not even seen my mom's CT. So what I did was at the next CT I had the tech burn us a copy of it and we sent it to Stanford where the cyberknife doctor reviewed it for free. There were too many mets so he advised sticking with her chemo and if we could get the number down to 2 or 3 she would have been a candidate but that did not happen. Sometimes when you want answers you have to go straight to the doctor that does the procedure or you just get jerked around. It is VERY frustrating. Got to run. Good luck getting some answers tomorrow, maybe you could ask to speak to him alone? JanMarie

angelmama39 · 11-07-2006, 05:32 AM

interesting about the cyberkinfe...read my post above...

angel