I was diagnosed with Stage 4 Lung cancer right before Christmas 205. I had a biopsy in September and IT WAS NEGATIVE! Went for a 3 month follow up scan and recommended another biopsy. There is a large mass in right lung, confirmed over the summer. Another biopsy in early December was positive and the when the genetics came in, it was EGFR+. Met with a heme/onc closer to where I live (the biopsies were done at a hospital about an hour from here. This was on my husband's and my anniversay, Dec. 17. We spent an hour with the doctor, he answered all of our questions at the time and I chose to begin treatment quickly right after the holidays. I had a cyber knife radiation treatment on my skull, where I had a painful metastasis. That was on New Year's Eve. I felt much better after but came home and had such pain, I couldn't finish a phone conversation with my daughter! I called the interventional radiologist's emergency number and the doctor on call called me back and said to take a steroid that I'd been prescribed to take before my chemo sessions and had it filled already, so I bypassed an ER visit. She said that's what I would have been told in the ER to do. So that did save me a trip to the ER on the evening of NYE. It helped thankfully. The follow up with the radiologist could NOT believe that I got relief so quickly! He said it usually took 3-4 months!

After the diagnosis and for a month or so after, the dianoses and my mortality were always on my mind. I really couldn't think of anything else! When the genetics came in, the doctor changed my course of treatment to a course of cisplastin, Alimpta and tagrisso orally to begin the day after my first treatment. I had some relatively minor side effects but the meds prescribed to handle side effects helped a great deal. After 4 rounds of cisplastin, it was discontinued and just took the Alimpta. I had a brain MRI in February and the small tumors had seriously reduced in size or they were gone. A PET scan in March also showed reduction in size of lung tumor, and diappearance of lymph metastases in both lungs! I have one more infusion of that this Friday and the chemo is over. But the tagrisso will be continued. I need to follow up with a brain MRI in early May. I will make that appointment tomorrow.

My advice is try to do things that will keep your mind off of it! I KNOW how hard THAT is. The diagnosis was all I could think about for a long while. I continued to go to my book club (only missed one) and read the chosen books. My husband picked out some shows on streaming services (not Netfix) but on Hulu and Amazon Prime mostly. We also watched, in a couple of parts, a 6 hr documentary about the American Revolution on the local PBS station. There was so much we didn't know!!! I highly recommend that everyone watch it. It does help to focus on something else that will hold your interest for a few hours a night. You will forget your problems, if only for that time. But it does help and lets you focus on something completely different from your own cancer diagnosis, if only for a short time. You realize soon that life must go on. One of the hardest parts was telling my close family and best friend. I only recently told some neighbors I see. My next door was told by my husband a few months ago. My book club friends know now and another older member had just been diagnosed with cancer of the soft palette- roof of mouth and it made eating some foods difficult for her. Fortunately, we all have support in each other & our families.