Living with Lung Cancer

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...

Great news!! I saw my oncologist this morning and got the results of yesterday’s CT scan. She said she has seldom seen results so good. She even used the word “unbelievable.” The mass in my lung has decreased in size from 4.3 x 6.6 cm to 1.7 x 4.2 cm. The metastatic lesions in both lungs, my liver, and one of my ribs have either decreased significantly in size or have disappeared entirely. I had my fourth chemo treatment after seeing my oncologist today and am scheduled for my fifth chemo treatment on April 20. However, my oncologist may have me temporarily quit chemo to give my body a chance to recover from the side effects of the four treatments. That would be great for me because the fatigue and recently the severe itching have become huge issues most days. The exciting and encouraging progress can be attributed to my oncologist and her expertise in developing my treatment plan, to a couple of “natural” cancer remedies I’ve been using to complement the official treatment plan, a...

Yikes – it’s been almost three weeks since my last blog entry. Not much has happened in those three weeks. I wrote the last entry the day after my second chemo treatment, and there have been almost no issues those whole three weeks. The only issue worth commenting on has been fatigue. There are days when I feel great and have no desire to take a nap all day. Then there are days when I need to take a nap after just taking a shower and brushing my teeth. It’s kind of crazy because there’s no way to predict when the fatigue is going to hit. My third chemo treatment was scheduled for tomorrow, but it got moved to March 9 when my second COVID vaccination shot got scheduled for tomorrow. The main thing I wanted to let you all know about is that I got the results of the January 22 nd Gamma Knife procedure. You may recall that one of the things the early scans revealed was a metastatic lesion in my brain. The Gamma Knife procedure used radiation to attack that lesion. Last Monday (Febru...

I had my second chemo treatment yesterday. From the time we arrived until the time we left was 7.5 hours, and I thought you might find a description of the process interesting. Joanie was scheduled for an immunotherapy infusion for her breast cancer yesterday also, so we drove in separate cars. After checking in, we went into the infusion room, a large room with a lot of huge, comfy recliners well separated from each other. I grabbed some crackers and peanut butter and some chocolate Ensure from the snack area, and we settled into a couple of the recliners. A nurse drew some blood and then ushered us out of the infusion room and into one of my oncologist’s exam rooms. A short while later my oncologist joined us. She said my labs looked great and she wanted to add an immunotherapy drug to the two chemo drugs. We went back to the infusion room and settled into our recliners. Joanie had brought some crackers, cheese, and summer sausage left over after Sunday’s Super Bowl, so we feas...

I keep thinking I should post another blog entry but there’s not been much to write about since the last post, so this will be short. The debilitating fatigue from the radiation treatments that ended 17 days ago has subsided to where it’s not much of a problem anymore. I can’t be as active as I’d like and I take a nap or two every day, but I’m usually able to function pretty well both physically and mentally. And the issues from the Gamma Knife procedure have resolved themselves. Probably the most interesting thing that’s happened lately is that on Day 11 following my first chemo treatment, I started losing some hair. By now, on Day 16, there’s almost none left. For a few days I was losing handfuls of hair in every shower. This morning I lost almost none, so perhaps I won’t lose it all. Here are two pictures. The first was taken on Monday. The second was taken today, three days later. My chemo treatments are scheduled every three weeks with the next one scheduled for next Tuesd...

My wife Joanie tells me that several people have requested more info about the Gamma Knife – what it is, why I needed it, and what it was like for me during and after the procedure. Gamma Knife is a non-invasive radiosurgery procedure that kills targeted tissue in the brain. Despite its name, it does not involve a real knife. It works by aiming up to 201 low-level radiation beams from many angles such that they all intersect on the unwanted tissue. Therefore, good brain tissue gets exposed to very low levels of radiation but the targeted tissue gets hit with the sum of all those low levels, destroying that tissue. Here is a description of the procedure from https://gammaknife.com : “On the day of treatment, the patient may be given light sedation. Next, local anesthesia is used to secure a head frame to the patient’s head…With the frame in place, the patient undergoes an MRI or CT scan…in order to locate the lesion in the brain to be treated. Using the imaging procedure, the treati...