Wife's Diagnosis SCLC- Chemo Next Week-What Should I Do?

Outings like the grocery store can be exhausting. It also opens her up to the flu and RSV that are going around. Make sure she has a mask on. And remember, masks make it a bit more of a challenge to breathe.

Could she participate by helping plan a pick up order? Try premade puddings, cream soups, add cheese, use Half and half instead of milk, ice cream, pies and baked goods.

Ask her primary care doctor for occupational therapy. Im going through chemo again and Medicare has me doing OT and PT at home. I walk around the inside of the house a bit and the exercises I do are gentle but they are imprint strength and stamina.

Thanks @denzie for the tips.

We did go to the store. She wanted to get out and walk around. The outing was good and she got a lot of walking. We did pick up some jello pudding boxes and she made it when we got home. I forgot how good that is.

But that night she got very sick. It was nausea and vomiting. The doctor had told us about four or five days after chemo this could very likely happen. She took the nausea meds they gave her and that did help, but it was a tough night. Thankfully she is getting some sleep. now.

We're still just taking it one day at a time. We try to make everyday the best we can.

What a great outing! Now that I'm going through chemo again I find that taking it first thing before I get up helps tremendously. And taking it before bed helped too.

Please make sure you're giving her stool softeners. Anti nausea drugs do tend to bind the colon up.

Hi, update. A couple of days after my last post my wife had a fever. They had told us to call if a temperature gets to 100.5 degrees or higher. her's was 100.4, so we waited until the next day, but she was started to feel a cold coming on. The next morning it was 101.6, so we called the doctor's nurse and left a message. About an hour later she called and said go to the emergency room.
From there she was admitted to the hospital. She received antibothics and a shot to raise her white cell count.
She was released after five days and two days before her next round of chemo. Her white cell count had risen to a good level and was holding it's own.
Now we are done with two days of chemo and the first two days of radiation. Her radiation treatments are once in the morning and once in the late afternoon, with chemo in between. The radiation will run for fifteen straight weekdays. they are twice a day because she has a pacemaker and they need to give her lower doses.
In the last two days her memory has worsen. She cannot remember appoint times or what medicines she has taken. I nhave taken over her pills and I was already driving her to appointments and treatments.
The nurses call this chemo brain, and say it should go away after treatments.
Her appetite is good but she has lost all of her hair.
And her mood is good. They have highly recommend we limit our time around other people. That is going to be tough, but five days in the hospital was no fun either. Just one more day of chemo this week and then just radiation for two weeks. Thanks for reading.

The combination of chemo and radiation can be debilitating. My caregiver made a spreadsheet and kept it on a clipboard by my pills. He listed the time then the medication. There was a pen attached to it so I could check it off as I took them. We kept it going a few weeks after treatment ended and I felt strong and fatigue was dissipating.

At this stage, most rehospitalizations result from medication errors. Anything you can do to simplify it for her will go a long way to preventing that. Perhaps your computer has a template that will work for this.

denzie that is a great suggestion! The doctors do just keep adding presciptions for her to fight the side effects of chemo and radiation. We are thankful there are drugs to help fight some of the tough side effects, but they were becoming a probblem to keep track of.
She used to take 3 or 4 pills in the morning and a couple at night. Boy that has changed. Some of the new prescriptions she is to take 4 times a day. Some on an empty stomach, some after eating. Some she has to be sure to allow an hour before anotherf pill. Whew!
Your suggestion is just what we needed. I will get that started this wedekend.
Thank you and have a great weekend.

You start to get worn out after all the appointments, all the driving and keeping trac k of all the pills. And that's just me the caregiver. Being the patient is 100% worst.

So when we get good news from a doctor it helps perk us up and think all this misery she is going thru will payoff. The radiation doctor on Monday did a CT scan of her lungs and gave us the results yesterday. Her tumor mass has shrunk a great amount and the tumor on her neck is almost gone. The doctor was really amazed and believes even more strongly that the chemo and radiation can wipe out the tumor. The doctor said she is reducing the radiation field to pinpoint right on the remaining mass. PTL!

It's hard not to get too excited because we know how horrible this disease is. But we'll tgake a victory lap for the next few days!

A date has been set for the SCLC Summit I previously mentioned and registration is now open for patients and care partners. There are travel grants available for both.

There will be opportunities to meet with sclc specialists, learn management strategies from other sclc patients. Learn what research is being done and more.

It's an amazing, supportive group of people you will meet there. Including some long term survivors, and it is empowering for both patient and care partner.
https://www.livelung.org/sclcsummit

I fortunately have been on the same chemo as the first time carboplatin and etoposide and have not had any repercussions. You get tired quicker and ive lost my taste buds which stinks.

I would say eat what your stomach can handle and do take it easy after having chemo until you can find out what you are going to feel like. God bless 🙏

Chemo and radiation treatments are completed! PTL!
Last chemo was April 24 and radiation finished a week earlier. After the last chemo treatment my wife's oncologist said the next two weeks would be the worst she would experience. Boy was he right. Awfully tough on her. But now this phase of lung cancer is over. It was a very a tough 4 months on her. Lost a lot weight and all her hair.
But the lastest CT scan and brain MRI only show a very small tumor left in her lung! The doctors are very pleased with these tests, and so are we. Now on to immuunotherapy. The doctors believe this treatment will eliminate the remaining tumor.
Immunotherapy starts in four weeks. It will be an IV of durvalumab every four weeks. Anyone with experience receiving durvalumab?