no longer accepting treatment

From: Andrea (aknight1969_at_comcast.net)
Date: 01/26/05 

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 12:20:28 -0500

Thank you to everybody for answering my previous questions....

My aunt just had a dr's appt yesterday with the lung specialist. She
was told, based on films and testing done in late November, that the
cancer has mestatisized (sp?), it has spread to her lymph nodes and her
blood stream.

She was told that they can not "cure" the cancer, but she can receive
treatment "for the rest of her life". Which may or may not improve her
quality of life.

She has decided not to accept the treatment. She has been in treatment
this last time for 1 year. Today is actually her 1 year anniversary of
her 1st chemo treatment (this time). All together she has received
treatment for ovarian, thyroid, breast (both) and most recently lung cancer.

She will be 65 on Feb 3.

I am not sure why I am going into all of this. I think I am trying to
rationalize to myself that it is okay to no longer accept treatment,
since she has gone through so much. She has severe neoropathy from the
Taxol, and she would need a shunt because her veins have collapsed.

She was also told that the treatment would be more for educational
purposes (studies etc), since she is being treated at a teaching hospital.

Could someone give me any ideas of what we can expect in the future?

Thanks

-Andrea

Andrea wrote:
> I have a question about staging and lung cancer. I apologize in advance
> for my lack of information and details. My aunt is not very proactive in
> getting specifics.
>
> She is 54 and was diagnosed with lung cancer 1 year ago this past
> december. The cancer was in her lymph nodes and it was so large it was
> masking another tumor in her lungs.
>
> She did 6 months of chemo and 28 days of radiation. That treatment
> shrunk the nodes and killed the tumor.
>
> This December they found another tumor in her stomach that they say was
> "a piece of the tumor in the lung" and it has fallen into the area of
> the lung. I am not very familar with the correct terminology, but this
> is how she relayed the story to me.
>
> How is it that you can have lung cancer in your stomach?
>
> The doctor that initially treated the lung cancer has now directed her
> to a lung cancer specialist to do more testing.
>
> Could this be stage III where the lung cancer has spread to other
> organs? I have mostly seen references to spreading to bones, brain?
>
> thanks
>
> -A

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