dad has lung cancer???!!! - Cancer: Lung Message Board

hayley0610 · 04-20-2007, 01:41 AM

my father in law was diagnosed 3 mths ago with bronchitis when it didnt get better he saw someone else who took xrays of his chest lungs and so on and said no u have severe pneumonia sp? so he went to the hospital now all of a sudden he was put in icu and was asked for all family to come that he had had respitory failure. so my dh and m.i.l went down there now they have taken him from icu to emerg ward in case they need machines asap to revive him! this seemed rather harsh for pneumonia even though i know it can be bad but now the dr said it could be advanced lung cancer!! my dh said he has lost easily 30lbs in a few wks and looks like an old man he is only 60.the wont get the biopsy back for a week so they wont treat until then and right now they cant give him pain meds cause of laboured breathing.they asked him what he wanted done should he go into failure and the dr told my dh his days are numbered, also my dh said he looked like he was dying so i was wondering if this sounds like cancer or not? it just seems so sudden,he has been a smoker at least 40 yrs.also something weird but my dh said he had 2 lupms on his head and one on his face! when he asked the dr he said he didnt know what it was and that was the least of their worries.

snoopy63 · 04-20-2007, 09:45 AM

Hayley..
Im so sorry you are having to deal with this...this sounds similar to what my husband is going/went through..there were a couple of months of going to the dr and just getting handed antibiotics until they finally did a chest xray and he had a complete "white-out" of his right lung... this is caused by a pleural effusion... which is a buildup of the fluid surrounding the lung...
it can be pneumonia, lung cancer and other things. They did a CT scan and drained and tested the fluid for cancer. This does take a couple of days for the cytology tests to come back...
What kind of biopsy was done? Did they do a bronchoscopy? Have they done a CT scan yet? Is the fluid on both lungs??
My husband had lost about 25lbs before he was diagnosed..now a total of 50 as of yesterday...you can read what i wrote on cachexia thead...
unfortuately cancer could be the cause of the weight loss. Do you know if your father had been eating normally? My husband lost his appetite which obviously speeds the weight loss however with cachexia you can eat normally and still lose weight.... this is the cancer...

I hope that there is something else causing your father these problems...something that can be easily remedied. It is certainly scary not knowing. I am sorry they cant give pain meds... I know they have to be careful administering them due to breathing but I thought they could still give them....are they giving him anything at all? If it is a pleural effusion, they should be able to tap the lung to drain the fluid out... I dont know though...

Unfortunately...symptoms dont show up till in most cases it is late in the "game"... my husband started feeling poorly in Dec but wa still working until end of Feb...here it is April and he is on disability and is almost bedridden...it takes all his energy to go to radiation... he was supposed to have 2 weeks and now it stretched out to 3 b/c he kept feeling to poor to go.
He is young 47 and was strong and a bit on the heavy side...so I this has all worked to his advantage or else he could have been much worse by now..
I dont mean to be negative..I certainly hope and pray it is something else for you but things snd pretty similar to our situation...Best of everything to you right now ((((Hayley))))

I am curious about the lumps on the head b/c I seemed to notice something like that on my husband recently...If they tell you anything I would be really curious to know...

hayley0610 · 04-20-2007, 10:23 AM

thanks for ur reply. at this point, for some reason, they have stopped treatment given him pain meds and basically telling everyone to come visit so we dont think he will be alive long. my dh said he was hallucinating this morning, we dont really know much medically but his other lung is clear and the other is very much so not.my dh is like well why cant they remove the lung? it seems so odd to us because he was fine the other day and the dr seems to have said this is it all we can do but they dont even know what it is for sure yet!

snoopy63 · 04-20-2007, 11:58 AM

wow..it seems to be happening pretty fast...you are right! I am so sorry!!
If it is only one lung it sounds like what my husband had...that is prob why his breathing is so labored... my husband had over 6-8 LITERS of fluid drained off! he has a chest tube in now but we hope to get it out. A tumor was blocking an airway and the irritation of the tumor caused the pleural effusion... it isnt producing as much fluid now so they may be able to do a talc procedure to prevent his lung form recollaspsing...
my husband had a very hard time breathing until they drained him and then they found his right lung had totally collapsed to the size of a lemon from all the pressure of the fluid....they finally got most of it opened...and now hopefully the radiation shrank that main tumor to open the rest of it up.. this will my no means save him...I have already been told 6 months( and I think that was padded)..that was 1-1/2 mo ago... his weight loss is leaving him pretty weak... but at least if the chest tube comes out he might be able to tolerate enough chemo to get him some quality of life back and buy a bit more time...

as far as removing the lung... he probably couldnt take surgery right now...and if it is a pleural effusion it means the cancer is outside the lung and inoperable... he may have cancer in the other lung like my husband...it was just worse in the right one and caused the effusion but it probably wouldnt show up in an xray... they would need to do a ct scan for that....

Bless you during this time and again I am sorry this is happening as quickly as it is... but even if you know it is almost impossible to prepare...

Kimslos · 04-20-2007, 12:40 PM

Hi
Sorry to hear about your FIL. When I read your posting it brought back memories that happeed over a year ago with my dad. My dad did not have lung cancer, but died of bladder cancer. BUT...he had congestive heart failure he had lived with for years and was fine, but kept getting bladder infections. Anyway, to make a long story short he was admitted to the hospital on Dec. 7th, 2005 and every time they kept trying to run test on my dad he would go into respiratory failure and be in ICU for days at a time. This went back and forth for quite a long time and on January 31,06 they were able to stablize my dad to find out he had terminal bladder cancer. He died on Feb. 18th and honestly we were in shock. It was hard losing my dad, but I knew he had to go as I could not see him suffer anymore. Now for the otherside of the story...my husband was diagnosed in June 05 with SCLC which is every extensive and they only gave him 6-18 months with treatment and he is still fighting hard, but you just never know how ones body can handle the disease and the treatment. Based on what you are saying about your FIL it looks rather gloomy, but keep faith and I can feel the numbness and shock your family is feeling as I have been there. (both in my dad's case and my husbands considering he was not even a smoker) As sad as it is most people don't realize that most lung cancers are diagnosed at advanced stages. (we never knew a thing about lung cancer until my husband was diagnosed) I do know one thing though that lung cancer will never get the funding as long as people think it is self inflicted disease.
Sorry to hear he is hallucinating and they are asking everyone to come in as I assume they are expecting the worse.
Hang in there,
Kim
PS-Snoopy I feel for all you are going thru. I hope you get some support and comfort from this posting board. I do hope your husband feels better soon so he can continue treatment.