Anyone out there living with stage 4 lung cancer?

@sipka, it is so hard to see someone in pain. Like you, I hope the chemotherapy will provide some relief from the pain. Does you husband have a pain medicine/palliative care doctor who helps with pain management?

I can imagine you feel helpless and wish you could take his pain away. Sending you a virtual hug.

When will he start chemotherapy? Has raditaion been discussed to help with the pain?

@fowlair
Hi
I am new here. My husband who is 65 years old had a lower back ache and nothing helped it get better. He finally went in to get an MRI and they found a tumor in his right lung and it had spread to his lower back bones.
This was so - out of the blue - but, Thank God we went in to get his back checked.
We are waiting on some chemotherapy for him, it should be soon.

In the meantime, my husband has back pain and pain pills but, he still seems in so much pain. I HATE seeing him in pain, it is so awful. I am really trying to be strong and positive when I am with him , it is difficult.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how better I can help his back pain possibly?
I want to make him as comfortable as possible while he goes through this awful disease.

Thank you

@sipka Sorry to hear about your husband's situation and the sudden news. We had a similar experience this summer and took us a while to get over it and accept the fact that my husband has stage 4 with metastasis being asymptomatic. With your situation similar to ours, they may do a chemotreatment cycle first (4 rounds once every 3 weeks) and in between those cycles put him on SBRT radiation if those spots are good targets for radiation. For back pain, oxycodone for 5 days helped him and he could then stop taking them. Hope they give him something to help with pain. Lung cancer is so tricky since lungs feel no pain and they are hard to detect till metastatic sometimes, unfortunately for us. Hang in there!

@nursed2075- Welcome to Mayo Connect. Yes, we have a lung cancer group. I am the mentor for lung cancer and health. I do have stage 4 lung cancer. Many people in the lung cancer group do. I'm horrible on my cell phone otherwise I'd put the link here. You can access it the same way you found this group.
Why are you interested in stage 4 lung cancer patients? Have you been diagnosed with it?

@nursed2075- having cancer sucks and so does chemo. I drank tons of water to help get the chemicals out of my system. One of the chemicals that I had was cisplatin and that absolutely killed my appetite. I was also wiped out.
I forced myself to eat, small helpings of at least some protein. I also could handle pastries and the like.
Believe it or not exercising will help with energy.
What type of lung cancer do you have? Did you have any surgery?
Do you have family at home to help you?

@fowlair
Hi
I am new here. My husband who is 65 years old had a lower back ache and nothing helped it get better. He finally went in to get an MRI and they found a tumor in his right lung and it had spread to his lower back bones.
This was so - out of the blue - but, Thank God we went in to get his back checked.
We are waiting on some chemotherapy for him, it should be soon.

In the meantime, my husband has back pain and pain pills but, he still seems in so much pain. I HATE seeing him in pain, it is so awful. I am really trying to be strong and positive when I am with him , it is difficult.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how better I can help his back pain possibly?
I want to make him as comfortable as possible while he goes through this awful disease.

Thank you

@janlanderz- Actually that's fine that he set up a separate appointment to answer your questions. He might have been very busy the day you saw him. I have had lung cancer for 22+ years with 2 types of cancer. I am stage 4 with no metastasis. I have asked every darn question know to mankind (lol) and have found a lot of them can't be answered. Have you googled your question? Can I ask what your question is so that I can help you understand more?

update March 9th results of Feb 28th scan...see below.

Re-posting the status of my cancer... ... I have Adenocarcinoma Non small cell lung cancer stage 4.. PDL-1 less than 1% with no mutations... I was diagnosed in December of 2018 but did not begin treatments until late February 2019 by the time they finalized my PET scan, sending my biopsy to Toronto to see if I qualified for immunotherapy etc... my oncologist said that the information came back from Toronto that I did not qualify for immunotherapy so they began my therapy with two different chemo drugs... CARBOplatin and Premetrexed (aka:Altima) I was given the combo of the two chemo drugs for 4 infusions every 3 weeks... then just premetrexed for the next 7 infusions every 3 weeks.. I was told by my oncologist that in Oct 2019 that the chemo drugs were no longer shrinking my tumours.. so They began giving me infusions of Nivolumab (aka: Opdivo) every 4 weeks, my last infusion to date was on Feb 13th, 5 infusions so far... I will not know if the immunotherapy is working until I have my next scheduled CAT scan this Friday, Feb 28th.. will get the results from my oncologist on March 9th. I am praying for a miracle to hear NED... I know this drug has done wonders for many people... The only thing that confuses me at this point is why I was told I did not qualify for the drug when I was first diagnosed and now they are giving me the drug... so who knows.. I will be asking my new oncologist on my March 9th appointment that question and will let you know the outcome either way... Please feel free to share your journey in hopes that other people will learn from it or find out there is hope ... and never accept the diagnosis of there is nothing more we can do for you... ALWAYS SEEK A SECOND OPINION and never give up hope...

OKay.. .here are the results of my scan after 5 infusions of Novolumab (Opdivo) from Feb 28, 2020 scan... guess its kind of stable.. 2 steps forward and one step back...The tiny nodules identified within the right lower lobe the lung have almost completely resolved tiny nodules noted within the right lower lobe the lung measuring 2 mm. The subsegmental atelectatic changes with some degree of speculation identified involving the right lower lobe the lung have also significantly improved, on the prior examination speculated area measured 1.2 x 0.6 cm in size the current examination measures 1.2 x 0.4 cm in size less nodules are noted in this location. Multiple nodules noted involving the left upper lobe the lung have also resolved. Of note however, there is a larger mass identified involving the left lower lobe the lung measuring 1.4 x 1.5 cm in size, on the prior examination measuring 0.8 x 1.2 cm in size is also a new nodule identified involving the lower aspect of the left upper lobe the lung measuring 0.5 cm x 0.5 cm in size.