Don't worry about any doctor's demeanor... because statistically she is correct. But it matters little. What matters is getting treatments going and see how he responds... who've no doctor can predict. They just prescribe the treatments and then wait til the next scan comes in... as they live scan to scan, just like us patients do. I know many stage 4s who are doing just fine 3, 4, 5, 6 years later... totally NED! You wanna chat with a few? Just pop on our free Zoom calls... we hold these twice-weekly. Next one is Sunday at 9am Eastern. But even these stage 4s still think of themselves as stage 4s... they know their cancer got out of the esophagus and has appeared in far off lymph nodes and organs. Nothing can change that fact... other than they find a chemo and immunotherapy regimen that took care of business. They no longer do chemo, but some continue their 30 minute immunotherapy infusions every 3 or 6 weeks as they believe it is what is keeping them NED. Sure, they probably don't have to any longer... but can't say I blame them. I think one guy is on his 83rd Herceptin infusion... another is on his 103rd Keytruda infusion. But since they see little to no side effects they figure why not. Don't ask me about insurance and the 1 to 2 year infusion protocol... I have no clue! They just keep paying... nice!

Ok... I'm not a stage 4... just a plain ol vanilla stage 3, T3N1M0 staged EC patient, still on my own journey. But I'm in my 4th year post-op... gotta shot now... eating fairly normally... sleeping and pooping pretty normally too. Go figure. But... we don't sugarcoat on our Zoom calls... we give you real tangible advice and guidance... because we've talked with hundreds of our fellow patients and caregivers. Not much we haven't seen.

Hang tough,

Gary
Southern California