Living with lung cancer - Introduce yourself & come say hi

Hi everyone been awhile since i’ve Been in here. Hope everyone is doing the best they can and relying on family , friends, doctors and their faith in going on each day. Life is a gift granted it has a lot of bumps in the road

@manderlay- Good morning and welcome to Mayo Connect. Your English is very good. I can not imagine how difficult it must be to see your dad so ill and he's lucky to have you doing some research for him. I am a lung cancer survivor and your dad's cough is very common for people with lung cancer with or without blood. I had blood when I coughed. I think that after 3 weeks that the cough from smoking should pretty much be gone, but I'm not sure. Maybe your dad feels a trickle in his throat that makes him cough. Sometimes heart conditions can cause coughing. You might want to look that up as to why that happens. He could also have some post-nasal drip that is causing this, or a combination of them. And some medicines can cause coughing. It's so difficult to know or pinpoint what type of cough it is and from what but since he has lung cancer I would place my bet on that. There are lots of meds to help calm coughing but your dad's oncologist should be the person to prescribe something because he will know which meds won't interfere with his chemo.
It's very important that he drink lots of water to help rid his body of chemicals and help keep his mucus from getting thick. Is your dad having any pain? Other than the cough does he have any other symptoms? It's very good news that your dad has no metastasis in other organs. Do the doctors know why there is fluid around his heart?

@cindylb Good luck to you and your husband in getting answers.

This is a link to the web site for Foundation One...
https://www.foundationmedicine.lt/content/dam/rfm/lt_LT/Documents/Foundation%20Medicine%20Sample%20Report.pdf
The “Sample” report shown is very similar to that which came back from their study of my wife’s lung biopsy. It took 5 weeks to get the results...so be patient.

My suggestion is that you have your husband’s oncologist consider them as a qualified resource.

Their recommended treatment strategy (in my wife’s case) was implemented by our Mayo oncologist for her in December of 2016.

She is still on the planet, and living a pretty normal life!

Hello all,
my father (72) has recently been diagnosed with non-small non-squamous cell lung cancer (adenocarcinoma). He is a smoker for 50 years. He stopped smoking almost 3 months ago when he started having a persistent cough leading to his being diagnosed with pneumonia and later with the cancer. He is between stage 3 and 4 as the doctors are not sure if a spot in his left lung is a metastasis or not. His primary tumor is in his right lung, around 4 cm, no metastases in other organs, just in the lymph nodes around the primary tumor (this is what I understand from the doctors explanation). They saw some liquid in his heart so they backed-off their initial decision to start him on combined radio-chemo treatment and he just had his first keytruda infusion.

He has a persistent cough and I was wondering if somebody had this as well. It is not a deep cough, it is like it's coming from his throat rather than his lungs. It's more like a non-productive cough - no blood, just some white foamy saliva after a huge cough episode. I was wondering is this from the cancer, as I read the cough is different, or is it possible it's an effect of his stopping smoking, or should we be seeking for any other reason (I read there is something called psychogenic cough). I would appreciate it if somebody has had any experience with something that can relief the cough even a little bit.

Thank you and I wish good luck to each one of you!

(sorry for my English, not my mother tongue)

Thank you for your kind thoughts and input. That's a good solid suggestion that may help. Hugs to you and your wife and wishes for her continued good response to the new treatment.

@cindylb- How awful for you and your husband to endure so much and how frustrating it must be not to know what type of cancer your husband has. I agree with @burrkay about asking your husband's doctor about a molecular study for the purposes that he stated. Believe it or not it's not common not to be able to identify where the cancer started but it does happen. And often times with advanced cancers the origin of the cancer is never found because the cancer cells are poorly differentiated (haven't matured enough to be identified). Parts of my first cancer were poorly differentiated. Andhttps://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/cancer-unknown-primary-cup/about sometimes the original cancer is fought off but a secondary one forms in the lymph system.
@ina3 and her dad have been struggling with a similar situation and perhaps she will chime in here., especially the discussion she is having with @colleenyoung on Feb 26, this year. You can also check out her posts.
Have you considered having his biopsies looked at by another lab?

Hello all,
I have shared in this group and continue to share in a few others as well. Today I'm hoping that someone here might have some insight or suggestions for me regarding my husband's cancer diagnosis.

I am a breast cancer survivor, so not new to cancer tests, diagnosis or treatment options but my husband's situation is quite unusual and frustrating, so here's hoping someone may have some helpful thoughts or resources.

In January 2018 my husband was diagnosed with cancer, a tumor in his lung and the same cancer type in his subcarinal lymph node. Multiple biopsies, scans and tests and a second opinion from our largest, most respected cancer hospital in the area - the diagnosis was: Cancer of Unknown Primary. CUP is a cancer that doesn't match the area where it is found. The tumor is in my husband's lung and the lymph node nearby. There is no other metastasis of the cancer. The pathology doesn't match lung cancer and it does not match cancer of the upper GI tract, but it has elements of each.

We have been doing PET scans every 3 months to see if the cancer might present itself elsewhere (other than the lung) but it has not. It has been 16 months now. When he was diagnosed they gave him less than a year to live, Stage IV terminal cancer. We have organized our lives accordingly, which has caused great stress. They have now downgraded the cancer to Stage III. The tumor has remained mostly stable over the past year. The PET scans show increased activity in the lymph node on some scans and less activity on others.

The good news is that the cancer is stable and my husband is still here. The bad news is that we still don't know what we're dealing with or what, if anything, can be done. My husband has had no surgery, no radiation, no chemo, no targeted or immunotherapy......they don't know what to use unless they use everything, as in several kinds of chemo, to stop it. My husband has refused chemo without knowing what type of cancer we're facing.

At the time of diagnosis my husband had an undiagnosed heart condition that caused considerable symptoms and made him appear quite ill. That has been resolved. He was misdiagnosed with Parkinsons (he does not have that) and the surgery to correct the heart defect resolved the symptoms that looked like Parkinsons. He does have moderate COPD, which is fairly well controlled with his medications, O2 and other treatments.

So here we are at 16 months (thank goodness) and my husband has this odd cancer diagnosis. He doesn't feel well and we're trying to figure out if that's the result of the COPD or the cancer. The cancer is spreading via the lymph node through his body but his symptoms, according to the doctors, are not specific to the cancer. He does cough up some brown stuff every day now (COPD or cancer?) and has considerable fatigue. He also has some heartburn and takes prescription meds for that, which control or remedy it. That's it...........

The doctors (several of them) can't give us any answers or plan other than PET scans every 3 months. My husband has been using medical marijuana as his only treatment for the cancer (at the direction of his doctors). That could be reducing inflammation and possibly some of the cancer activity.

Has anyone had a similar situation or have any thoughts from things you may have researched. The doctors are leaning toward lung cancer now because the cancer isn't forming any tumors or causing any symptoms outside the lung??

If you got through this long email (thanks) and any thoughts are appreciated.