Mother-in-law diagnosed with lung cancer with brain mets.!!!! Told only 9 months to live!!!?

Yes, I am a nurse but I am at a loss on this one. We just lost my mother, April 9th, 2006, when I was pregnant for our now 5 month old little girl to the same dreaded disease. We have gone 5.5 hours one way to Sloan Kettering Cancer Center just to be told there is nothing we can do except treat her symptoms as they approach. She has 23 spots on her lungs and 7 in her brain. She is still functioning normally with headaches all the time. I feel awful because I asked a question about her earlier (see my profile) and now find out that the way she is acting may not be her fault. She is a wonderfully nice person and deserves every chance we can give her. We are on our way to Syracuse on the 25th. I have started taking our daughter to daycare so I can overtake her job doing the complete body shop office work and I make it my job to make appointments for her and to go with her so she understands. See she has only a 8th grade education. Has anyone heard of treatment for this?

my husband has also been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer and was told he might have only 6 to 9 months to live. it`s been one year now since his diagnoses and he is still playing tennis every day! his cancer spread from one lung to the other and primary tumor is 6,5cm. two chemotherapys failed he is now on a drug call Tarceva which seems to keep cancer from getting worse. one thing i have to tell you is at the beginning of the diagnoses he was feeling much worse than he does a year on. since then he cut out all sugar(cancer feeds on sugar), all dairy products drinks carrot and apples juice every day, drinks green tea, eats lots of vegetables(especially cabbage and brocolie which really benefits lung cancer), exersises every day even if its just 15 min(tumors don`t like oxygen). doctors are telling him he must be doing something right as he is in best condition for stage four cancer patient they have ever seen. another very important thing is to be positive. it has been proven that people who are positive live much longer. the best treatment for lung cancer is Tarceva it works even better for women then men but its not easy to get it on NHS.
good luck!

What did the doctors say? And does she want to spend the rest of her time terribly sick from a treatment that won't help her. If it's metastasized to her brain, you know what that means.

Just be there for her and help her to be as comfortable as she can be.

The treatment at this point would be worse than the disease. There is both radiation and chemotherapy. My father died this past July of lung cancer. He opted for no treatment and lived for 18 months after being told he only had 6 months. It was a long and horrible death. He died at home on Hospice care. All you can do is keep her as comfortable as possible and accept as much help as people offer.

If she's going to Sloan Kettering, from what I have heard of the place, she is getting probably the best possible treatment in the country...there are a few other specialty places for cancer in the country - including Anderson in Houston...but like I said, Sloan Kettering is like the best of the best. I think at this point, it's probably more important to make her as comfortable as possible rather than subject her to torturous treatment. And don't exclude her from any decisions/discussions regarding her treatment.

You can try this, I knew 3 different people with 3 different cancers, they are still alive and donot have any cancer at this time and they all took the same thing. they were all adults and taking emu oil gel caps, but I would recommend that the little one takes emu oil liquid, maybe 3 teaspoons a day 7 days a week, with her doctors permission. The good thing about emu oil its a natural product that doesn't have any side effects and it kills cancer cells. Its expensive,but what is a life worth. Best of luck

My husband was diagnosed March 20th with lung cancer. He went thru radiation, chemo, gamma knife treatment (for brain tumor) and took a drug called tarceva. By the time he was diagnosed(no symptoms) it was everywhere. He fought a hard fight but sadly, my love passed June 6th. The chemo took him down terribly. I sometimes wish he hadnt taken treatment maybe he would have lived longer. Bless you

This is incurable, but you probably know that because you're a nurse. It should be reassuring that she consulted with Sloan Kettering, as they are arguably the best cancer treatment center in the country. It sounds like the real decision may come down to whether she wants to begin chemo/radiation (if the doctors believe she is a candidate for this). It is a tough decision because although treatment could extend her life by months, they could also seriously lower the quality of it. This is a decision for her to make, with the help of you and the rest of her family. I wish you luck.

is it me or does someone sound excited about this?