Stage 4 With Mets To Brain

A very close family friend was recently diagnosed with Stage IV NSCLC.  She just finished 12 sessions of radiation for the six small mets to her brain.  She will be starting chemo on Wednesday and have it once a week for three weeks with the fourth week off.  This cycle will be repeated for 12 weeks.  Immediately after her diagnosis, she was in very good spirits, but now I can tell that she is laboring to maintain this mood, which I now believe is simply a cover.  Fear tells me not to ask her about overall prognosis; therefore I focus on small things. 

I guess I'm looking for comfort in strangers even though there really isn't anyone who could be closer to me.

What should my overall expectation be at this point?

I am sorry to hear about your friend.  My father had a very similiar diagnosis as your friend.  He had mutiple brain mets with the primary lung cancer.  That was back in August 2005.  He did full head radiation and various other chemo treatments.  He also does a lot of alternative things .  A great book is by DR Michael Murray.."How to prevent and treat cancer with natural medicine"  my father does/takes much of what is recommended in this book for lung cancer.  Additionally in the beginning I searched on line for success stories...and there are many and your friend can be one of them.. Tell her that...she is living with cancer not dieing from it.. Greg Anderson is a man that was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer and was given 6-8 monthes to live and he lived 10 + years.  He wrote many books but one in particular was goo "Cancer:50 essential things to Do"  It is very inspirational ... I wanted to find survivors and I wanted my father to do what they had done.  So far my father is beating the odds.  I am always scared but I take each day at a time...and I try to enjoy the present as much as possible..These books helped us develop our own plan they helped give us hope ...we had our ups and downs...but these books really helped us and I hope they hepl you and your friend

Good luck and God Bless