My Mother who is 72 was diagnosed with Stage IV NSCLC in Feb 05. She had some small spots on her adrenal glands and the dr's were not sure if they were cancerous so they backed her up to stage IIIB and gave her massive amounts of radiation and chem to the chest. It has taken almost 4 months to recover from the radiation and now the dr say the adrenal glands have grown so she is definately stage IV. If they had known that they would have never have done the radiation. The radiation has left her with tremendous excessive mucus and constant reflux and she has no appetite and, since she has been basically been unable to eat solid food since April, she can't eat much of anything now. Her weight has dropped to 101 and the dr told her if she can't turn it around she'll be gone in 2 months. They put her on steriods to give her strength and try and stimulate her appetite. So far it is not working for her. The dr's have her on so much meds that she has no appetite and is nausous most of the time. She is scared to death which is making her ability to eat worse. Does anyone have any advise on how to turn this around. She is too weak to start chemo and the may start her on Tarceva if Insurance will allow it.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.