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Hector_Lector · Joined: 20 Apr 2004 Posts: 548

My friend An ESL teacher has been diagnosed as having lung cancer. He�s coming to the end of his 5th cycle of chemotherapy still one more to go and things seem to be going well Do any of you have experience of this and know what the chances of survival are?

lozwich · Joined: 25 May 2003 Posts: 1536

Someone I know has recently got over inoperable lung cancer after quite heavy chemo. This was less than a year ago, so I'm still waiting and see-ing myself.

A different friend had breast cancer about 5 years ago, and she's recovered very well, and has no signs of it returning.

Another friend had a different type of cancer, and after chemo it went away for about a year, but then it came back and, very very sadly, he died. Sad

I think it depends on a lot of factors, a lot of which are out of our hands. Sorry not to tell you wonderful news, but the fact is, some people get over it, and some don't, and its really difficult to understand how and why.

Take care,
Lozwich.

Chancellor · Posted: Tue Sep 19, 2006 6:00 pm Post subject:

In 1994, I lost an adoptive sister to cervical cancer despite radiation and chemotherapy. I had cancer (not lung cancer) back in 1997. After surgery, I decided to forego radiation and chemotherapy. I had routine follow-up examinations and, nine years later, I'm still cancer-free. Some of my co-workers have gone through breast cancer and are doing well years later.

As another poster suggested, it's different for each person and there are many factors that determine survivability.

Sweetsee · Joined: 11 Jun 2004 Posts: 2302 Location: ) is everything

A dear friend of ours was diagnosed with lung cancer and died one year later, category 5 he said. Don't know much about it but I believe that was terminal.
Take care,
s

txtraveler · Joined: 04 Sep 2006 Posts: 16

I'm not a doctor or nurse, but I work with cancer patients all day (depressing subject matter is part of why I'm looking for a career change to TEFL) and am pretty familiar with cancer related issues.

Survival rates for cancer depend on a lot of things including the type of cancer, the aggressiveness of the cancer, other health conditions, etc. First, the type of cancer makes a big difference and there are 2 main types of lung cancer with different treatment options and different outlooks. Every individual is different, but lung cancer typically has a worse outlook than a similar stage of breast or prostate cancer, for example, but there are many people who live a long time after a lung cancer diagnosis. Only a doctor can really provide a prognosis or estimate for a specific patient because there are a lot of factors involved and even then it's only an educated guess. I've worked with patients who have outlived their prognosis by years and others who didn't make it as long as the doctors thought they would.

This link has a lot of information on the more common type of lung cancer.

PM me if you have any more specific questions.

rusmeister · Joined: 15 Jun 2006 Posts: 867 Location: Russia

Not to be flippant in the least, but this is where faith (religious faith) becomes important and can provide comfort and support.

We all have to die. Many of us live as if we never will and begin the search for the meaning we all desire in our lives only when the end is upon us. To those folk I'd recommend starting sooner.

Hector, if you give your friend's name (real first name if at all possible) I can pray for him (her?). One of the nice things about being Orthodox or Catholic Christian is that we can pray for both the living and the dead.

God bless!