Dad has Stage IIIB NSCLC, prognosis?? - Cancer: Lung Message Board

mishymay3 · 03-18-2007, 01:05 PM

Hi. My father was just diagnosed with Stage 3B NSCLC. It is inoperable because of the location of the lymph nodes affected. Does anyone have a realistic idea of what we are supposed to expect here? What is the life expectancy? I need REAL answers. I do not plan to tell my father because he is starting chemo once a week and radiation 5 days a week on the 26th and I want to keep his hopes up. Please be real with me here. I really need to know. Thanks so much. God bless you all. By the way, he is only 55.

conan1017 · 03-18-2007, 03:19 PM

mishymay3-

I am sincerely sorry about your dad and that you too have to suffer the emotional baggage of this disease. Based on the info you provided, statistics say that you dad has a 5-17% chance of being here 5 years from now. If he did really well and beat those odds ...who knows how things might turn out.

As for "real" answers, until recently there hasn't been a real soild commitment to research in fighting lung cancer. It has always been dubbed a "smokers disease" and the attitude towards LC has been that those who have it are accountable. Much more has been given to fighting other forms of cancer ...like breast cancer. However, the truth is that we are in a large part responsible for our health and taking care of our bodies. I am sure that other cancers could have been prevented as well, so I think the position on LC is shear hypocricy. But the good news is ...that is changing and some progress is being made. The longer your dad and my wife can keep fighting, the better the chances are that more promising treatments might become available. My wife is stage 4 and statistics only give her a 2% chance of surviving 5 years. But I am beyond the grim prognosis and on to the fight. And I hope you and your dad will do the same.

God bless you both,

conan

ebrena · 03-18-2007, 03:40 PM

Hi Mishymae3 well every case is different and treatments are different. In my mom's case she was diagnosed with metastisized brain cancer on Aug 28/05 and suspected LC is where it started. The Dr who diagnosed said at that time 4 months-I was mad-I thought how can he say that, they haven't even located the source for sure. They put her on antinausea and steriod meds, she lost her ability to walk without assitance almost immediatly, couldn't believe it. Next they did a median scope of the lung and determined what stage LC she had-it was stage 4. I became her care giver over the next 4 months-we lost our mom Dec 30/05 exactly 4 months and 2days from what the DR said-incredible considering we were so upset with that Dr and telling us that with absolutely not a care in the world. Mom smoked and my observation of the Health care services where we are, no one could be bothered. She had 6 treatments of radiation to the brain and 1 treatment to the lung after the treatment to the lung she really went down. The 5 treatments to the brain were pallative to shrink the brain tumors. I felt she was not given the care and respect she should have recieved and finally stepped in to say at least give her meds to keep her comfortable and so she wasn't so scared, she was so scared. If you feel they are not treating him professionally make sure to stand up on his behalf to the Dr's & Oncologists if it's pallative they have no answer's because they don't know what to do. And heaven forbid you take up a bed a person who is going to live could be in at the hospital. Our ordeal shocked me, but my mom was so brave and kept saying" well I guess people are worse of than me". Don't mean to bring you down with my experience but when I was looking for honest answers no one wanted to discuss it- I soon figured it out. My thoughts are with you, it's tough.

Janmarie2 · 03-18-2007, 06:56 PM

No one can give you the answer you are seeking as no one but god knows how long your dad has. We are all different and respond to illness and treatments differently. Doctors base their estimates on stastics and your dad is not a stastic he is a living breathing person. There are no REAL answers except that you need to take things a day at a time and concentrate on the fact that today he is alive and deserves to be treated like any living person, Do not let yourself slip into the" death watch" mode as then you will miss alot of life , instead you need to celebrate each day.

There are so many new treatments and drugs in the pipeline and who knows what they will bring to the treatment of lung cancer. Tarceva has allowed some people much more time then the doctors gave them and I have met several that are no evidence of disease ( NED) for 2 -3 yrs now from Tarceva and the earlier drug Irressa so you just never know. Their saying is" We love NED!"

I do not think doctors should give people time frames as some people believe what they say and what we believe does affect our lives and can effect the time one lives. My mom was told 6-12 months with treatment and she saw that as a challenge so set out to prove the doctor wrong and lasted almost 2.5 yrs but alot of people see what the doctor says as truth and do not challenge it.

Watch out for things like infection and malnutrition as they are the reason so many die so soon. Most will die from one of those two or organ failure, Be on the look out for fevers and do not let the doctors dismiss them as nothing my mom's doctor dismissed a low grade fever as being the cancer. I pushed for tests and she had an obstructive pneumonia with a total white out of her right lung And a urinary tract infection had I not demanded tests she would have become septic and died and would have been one of those 5-6 month stastics. If you want to help your dad become his advocate and learn as much as you can about treatment options. I have to run as I need to get to work. Feel free to ask as many questions as you want as usually someone here can offer answers or share their experience. JanMarie

mishymay3 · 03-18-2007, 08:38 PM

Thank you to all of you who posted. It means a lot that you would take the time to post to a stranger. I feel so helpless. I am learning as much as I can about this so that I can try to help in any way that I can. He starts radiation on Monday, the 26th, with chemo once a week and radiation 5 days a week. I think he is getting 25 treatments in all and then they will do another catscan. I have a question for you all. Since I am not at the doctor's appointments, I hear everything 2nd hand, but my father and stepmother told me that the doctor said that this cancer is not from the cigarettes. Is this something a doctor would say just to get my father to stop beating himself up about or do you think he really means this? He said it was genetic, however, there is no cancer in our family that I know of. How could the doctor be so sure of this. I mean, my father has been smoking for 37 or so years.
Thank you all for your help.