My mom was diagnosed with NSCLC (a tumor attached to her right lung and partially wrapped around her trechea), in August of 06. Her dr didn't get her started on treatment until Sept. Which she finished at the end of Nov. They didn't do another pet scan until the end of Dec. and didn't send her to a surgen for consutation until the middle of Fed, so by that time the tumor had reattached itself back to her trechea so surgically removing it was out. It had also spread to her adreanal (sp) gland and the surgeon wouldn't even remove that! She went back to her oncologist and he told her that it was basically over and that she couldn't do anymore chemo or radiation and put her on Tarceva and gave her a 1 - 5 yr life span and sent her on her way (not to mention he told her this the only time she was all by herself!!!! I have been reading some of your posts and notice that some of you have gone through treatments up to 4 times. How is this, when he told my mom she couldn't do it anymore after only 1 time? She was sick during the chemo, but she did her best and pulled through, she was only in the hospital once for fluids cause she got too dehydrated, but that's it!
Now she has a headache that never goes away (for the past week) and makes her cry it's so painful (she's at the ER right now to see if they can do anything), she called her dr and instead of having her come in so he could check her he just told her to stop taking the pills for five days and see where that leaves her. Is this normal Oncologist attitude????
I feel that she would have had a better chance with a dr that didn't wait so long to get her started on treatment, got the pet scan read ASAP and sent her to a surgeon ASAP! It took them 2 WEEKS to copy her medical information and send it to her general dr for crying out loud!!! And when we call them and tell them that she's basically dying they say 'yeah well so are most of the people we see'. I'm so mad at them! How can they treat people like they don't matter?!?!?!?!?!
We don't know what to do. She's trying to get on with City of Hope, but they only take certain insurances and she doesn't have the right one right now. Yet another thing she has to wait for! Where are all these places that are supposed to CARE are people with cancer instead of linning their pockets?????????
I feel like her dr basically gave her a death sentence and we're not ready to let her go!!! We just watched her aunt die from the same cancer last July!!
Sorry this is so long, but I have a lot of questions and no one seems to want to give me any answers! Have any of your or your loved ones been treated this way?????
Thank you all for reading and sorry also for venting, but I'm just so frustrated!
Sincerely, Katheryne