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Need some suggestions: Making treatment decisions for lung cancer
Lung Cancer | Last Active: Sep 25, 2022 | Replies (15)Comment receiving replies
Hi @thetwoofus, I'd like to add my welcome to @merpreb's. I'd also like to bring in a few additional members into this discussion, like @burrkay, whose wife also has lung cancer and @cindylb whose husband has a tumor of unknown primary being treated as lung cancer.
TheTwoOfUS, aka George, you are asking the right questions that you should discuss with your wife's cancer team. Ask how they will take into account her weight and age. These are factors that are considered carefully. But I would want to hear it from her team who know her entire medical history. Her treatments will also be monitored closely to see if chemo and/or radiation dosages need to be adjusted along the way.
Here are the results of a search on US News which ranks hospitals across the nation.
- Best Hospitals for Cancer in Colorado https://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/rankings/cancer/colorado
You might inquire if an appointment at Mayo Clinic is possible with your insurance. There may be accommodations available to you if her situation requires expertise that your state doesn't have. You can call Mayo Clinic's Insurance & Billing department to inquire: https://www.mayoclinic.org/patient-visitor-guide/billing-insurance/contact-us
This must be all so scary with all the unknowns. Are they treating the cancer on her carotid artery as a head & neck cancer or as a metastasis of the lung cancer? If you're not sure, that would be a good question to ask.
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Hello,
thanks for responding.
We know we asked about a recomendation for a good radiologist or center that specializes in treating cancer of the neck but we got a hold of one here today that talked to us about the issue and we we're pretty satisfied with what he told us.
He thinks chemo would be sufficient with no radiation treatments. He feels radiation would create other longterm negative side effects because of where it is in the neck and would not necessarily help to prolong her life but may have enough negative sideffects which could hurt her quality of life. So he thinks no radiation would be best. I tend to believe his assessment makes the most sense. But we won't know what her oncologist is going to recommend until tomorrow.
As for the biopsy, they're not sure exactly what it is or where it came from. She has non small cell but this tumor in the neck gives indications more like small cell which acts and spreads faster. They removed it entirely, but as I said, are now talking both radiation and chemo. Again, we will find out tomorrow,(Thursday) what her oncologist/ team recommendation is. But we're leaning toward possibly doing chemo with no radiation. Even if her oncologist says do both.
At this point we're wondering if there would be another choice other than chemo, which we will be asking her oncologist tomorrow. So tomorrow we will probably be put into the position of having to say yes or no to 3 options... chemo only or chemo and radiation or none at all. They offered her chemo 7 years ago and she said no. Thanks for listening and responding.