Living with lung cancer - Introduce yourself & come say hi

Hello! I'm Lori and I was diagnosed with NSCLC RET+ in June 2022 and started targeted therapy (Retevmo) in July 2022. Anyone else RET+ and on Retevmo or similar?

Hi again @loriwt, I'm glad you found us. There are certainly other members here with gene mutated cancers; EGFR, ALK. Many gene mutation lung patients are found at later stages. Were you diagnosed at a late stage? Did you go straight to the retevmo, or did you have other treatments/surgery?

I would like to give hope to lung cancer patients. I was diagnosed in 2017 and am still here and plan Christmas with my family. I was given first Tarceva and now taking Tagrisso. Thank you.

Hi Lisa! I was diagnosed as Stage IV and went directly to targeted therapy with no other treatments.

Hi Lisa.
For the benefit of others, I am living with after effect of lung cancer. I had surgery for a 1.5 cm mucinous adenocarcinoma in late May. The surgeon took the left lower lobe after receiving pathology report that it was malignant. All margins and nodes were clean, so stage PT1cPN0.
I have persistent rib/diaphragm pain with no insight as to why beyond “these things happen”.

That’s the short version 🙂

@easydoesit1928, that’s great news! There are more and more treatments available each year and people are living longer with lung cancer. Thanks for sharing.

I was diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer in October of 2022. I have had 6 rounds of chemotherapy and 30 radiation treatments that ended in December of 22. I have been on immunotherapy (Infinzi) starting in January 2023 and should complete it at the end of the year. I have a CT scan 12/15/2023 and so far the previous scans have shown no symptoms of cancer.

I see many references to genetic mutations. I had a left upper lobectomy a year ago but there was no mention of genetic testing. My stage was 1a.

@jessicamc- I'm unsure if you received my message as my computer acted up when I hit print- of course. I meant to share these links with you.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/neuroendocrine-tumors/symptoms-causes/syc-20354132
https://www.netcancerawareness.org/what-is-net-cancer/
To answer your question concerning home care, I bet you would need someone to help out for a week. You can then decide if you want to keep that person on or not.

One of my closest friends just celebrated her fifth anniversary from surgery. She is our age and doing extremely well. She takes care of a needy son and a needy husband.

Merry

@spikeb1- Good morning. Did you have a biopsy? Perhaps call the surgeon's office that did the biopsy and ask if genetic testing was done. Your sample should still be around and they can still test it. That's how mine was done.

Merry