Living with Lung Cancer

This afternoon I saw my radiation oncologist to get his opinion of the results of my April 12 brain MRI. While the shrinking of the metastatic lesion in my brain is certainly good news, he is concerned about three small bony metastatic lesions that the MRI detected in my skull. Two of them require no immediate treatment, but one of them is close to my brainstem and throat and he recommended treating that soon with radiation treatments Monday through Friday for two consecutive weeks. Before he can start those treatments, he needs to design and construct a brace that will hold my head in exactly the same position for each of those ten treatments. And to do that, he needs a specialized CT scan. I was already scheduled for a PET scan tomorrow morning, and since it is in the same building in which his CT scan would be done, he arranged for his CT scan to take place tomorrow right after my PET scan. That’s very convenient. The ten radiation treatments will be targeted close to my brain

I’ve got two “good news” things to report on. One is the result of my brain MRI from April 12. The other is the result of my visit with my oncologist this morning. The brain MRI showed that my brain lesion has continued to shrink, this time from 6 mm to 5 mm. Of course, that’s very good news. I’ll continue to get periodic brain MRIs and as long as the lesion continues to shrink or remains unchanged, all is well from the neck up. During my visit with my oncologist this morning, she confirmed that my progress has reached the point where I can discontinue chemo, probably permanently, but continue immunotherapy infusions every 3 weeks for the next 2 years. That’s fantastic news! I should start experiencing less fatigue in about 3 weeks and that should continue for about 6 months. My hair should start growing back in 4-6 weeks. And the time spent at the infusion center every three weeks will go from 6 hours to 2 hours. In other news – I’ve been having issues lately with not being able

There’s nothing too exciting to report on here, but I thought I’d let you know of a couple appointments coming up that I’m looking forward to. This Monday evening I’m getting another brain MRI. You may recall that I had a brain MRI right before my Gamma Knife procedure on January 22 nd and then another on February 22 nd , and a comparison of those two MRIs showed that the metastatic lesion in my brain had shrunk significantly, from 9mm to 6mm. The MRI this coming Monday will be compared with the February 22 nd MRI to determine if that lesion is continuing to shrink, staying unchanged, or growing. I don’t know when I’ll get the result, but I’ll update this blog when I do. The second upcoming appointment is with my oncologist on April 20 th . She’ll either want me to continue a few more chemo treatments, or temporarily discontinue chemo but continue with the immunotherapy, or she may come up with some other treatment plan. I’m hoping of course that she’ll temporarily discontinue th