Malignant pleural/ascitic recurrence after surgery

Hi everyone,
I’m looking for input from anyone who has dealt with malignant pleural effusion or malignant ascites after esophageal cancer surgery.

My mom (57) was diagnosed earlier this year with GEJ esophageal adenocarcinoma, originally staged T3N0M0 on EUS and PET. She completed full neoadjuvant chemoradiation and had a near-complete response at the primary tumor. She then had an esophagectomy in September, with clear margins, but pathology showed 6 out of 22 positive lymph nodes, making it pT3N2. No distant disease was ever seen on scans.

A few weeks after surgery she developed severe nausea/vomiting and a lot of fluid in her chest and abdomen. Today we learned that the fluid they drained from her lung tested positive for cancer cells, and they strongly suspect the abdominal fluid will be positive too (results pending). The doctors said this means a diffuse metastatic recurrence (pleural + possible peritoneal) and that this is now considered Stage IV.

They told us they need to get her stabilized and able to tolerate J-tube feeding before starting any further chemo/immunotherapy.

I’m hoping to hear from anyone who has been through something similar:
- Did anyone else have malignant fluid but still respond to treatment?

Any research on it brings back the worst types of outcomes. We’re really looking for some hope during this. We thought the outlook was good given the initial staging and success on the surgery but this just turned everything around.

Any experiences, advice, or perspective would be really appreciated.

Thanks