CancerCompass message board discussion started by Joe6432 on 1/1/2007 http://www.cancercompass.com/message-board/message/all,8547,0.htm Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT http://backend.userland.com/rss RSS.NET: http://www.rssdotnet.com/ My wife has been on Tarseva (150 mg daily) for approximately 4 weeks.  She has NSCLC and had one lung removed in July -- the cancer showed up in remaining lung in Oct. -- initial treatment was carboplatin and taxal.  She had a bad reaction to inital chemo.  Subsequent to her initial chemo reaction, we visited Mayo and they recommended Tarseva after performing pathological tests on her resected tumor.  She developed a minor rash within one week of starting treatment -- it has since almost entirely cleared up.  However, she now is starting to experience extreme fatigue and weakness.  I suspect that the weakness and fatigue are side effects from the Tarseva.  Have heard that by altering the time of day she takes her meds may help with the fatigue.  Currently, she is taking the Tarseva one hour before breakfast -- am thinking about changing to either 2 hours after lunch or dinner.  Thinking this may make her feel better during day and she can sleep through fatigue at night.I am going to contact doctor tomorrow but I am still interested in seeing if anyone else have any experience with this?ThanksJoe   Joe6432 Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT Joe....my mom was diagnosed with NSCLC 1 year ago almost to the day (1/23/06).  She was a smoker, but had quit over 20 years ago.  They found a tumor in her lung on a fluke x-ray.  She had been having right shoulder pain for a year prior and after therapy and drugs (because they were convinced that is was a pulled muscle or a torn rotator cup).  She changed medical in January 2006 and insisted that something wasn't right.  Her new doctor said, "It's probably just a soft tissue injury, but let's do an x-ray just to be sure."  They did the x-ray and he asked her, pointing to a mass in the lung, "What is this?"  She said, "I don't know, you tell me."  She went to a specialist that preformed a bronchosocopy.  Then she got a CT scan and an MRI.  She was diagnosed with a stage 4 lung cancer, with the only symptom being shoulder pain.  No shortness of breath, no pain in the chest, nothing.  She had the same chemo as your wife, 4 sessions, however, I wanted her to start on Avastin.  So they did a MRI of the brain to make sure she didn't have a leisons on her brain because Avastin can cause bleeding in the brain.  The MRI showed leisons in the brain. (What luck huh?)  So, between Chemo 2 and 3, she had 2 weeks of radiation to her brain and her shoulder because you guessed it, it was there too.  After that, she had her last 2 sessions.  I watched my mom go from 195 pounds in January 2006 to 135 pounds in June 2006.  I hated watching her be so sick from the chemo.  I hated seeing her wither away and look so sickly, have no energy and be so pale.  After the Chemo, she would go to see the doctor every 5-6 weeks.  She had chest x-rays and everything looked ok.  Our main goal was to keep the cancer from growing.  So far, we had stopped it. (Short lived hurrah.)  I took her to her appointment the first week in January 2007, and for some reason I had a knot in my stomach.  It wasn't right.  Well, the tumor had begun to grow again and more lesions were showing up in the lungs. She still only weighed about 145 pounds after having 4 sessions of that CRAP being IV'ed into her system.  Lucky for us, her doctor said she would be able to go on a clinical trial of tarseva with or without Avastin.  Well, she is having her second body PET scan on Monday and an MRI of the brain asap.  I have noticed a difference in her since she started seeing a acupuncturist who is also a medical doctor.  He has gotten her diet all squared away and she feels better and is getting more energy.  He has removed many of the toxions out of her body.  We'll see what happens after she starts.  I'm sorry if I bored you with my story, but I like to know what will happen with my mom when she starts tarseva and that I can actually talk to someone who can talk with me and understands what I am going through.  If you need to talk, vent, swear at doctors, whatever, I'm a great listener.  I'll send positive thoughts your way.  Gretchen Motherhen Thu, 25 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT