Finished with Treatment…For Now

Welcome back to the next Thriving Not Just Surviving blog post. I am pleased to report that we had another great CT scan on Thursday, October 5.

As we were all hoping, the remaining cancer in my body did not spread or grow since stopping treatment last month. In fact, the only remaining tumor continued to shrink. The degree of shrinkage was very minor, but this is the first piece of evidence that shows my immune system has been trained to keep the cancer in check. My oncologist continues to have confidence in my outlook. He currently has patients with stage 4 lung cancer that continue to have their immune systems keep the cancer in check over 5 years after discontinuing immune therapy treatment.

The plan over the next few months is to be off treatment and monitor the remaining cancer. My oncologist wants to wait a full three months before the next CT scan. Three months seems like an eternity and a lot can happen in three months, but that is the current protocol for patients on immune therapy.

The good news is that life should return to normal as much as possible for the next three months. I am completely off steroids now and the steroid’s side effects should gradually diminish over time. I will continue to live a healthy lifestyle and continue with my regimen of holistic remedies including: vitamins, probiotics, essential oils, and cancer fighting foods.

I am thankful and happy with the amazing progress over the last several months. My cancer journey has been very different from most other lung cancer patients. My doctor was able to achieve amazing results without having to expose me to radiation or chemotherapy. I haven’t had to suffer through the normal chemotherapy side effects. I don’t even have a port.

All that being said, the journey is far from over. Most likely the cancer will come back at some point. My specific lung cancer, adenocarcinoma, varies in severity significantly across patients. My oncologist did confirm that I do have a very aggressive and fast moving form of adenocarcinoma. Typically, the worst forms cause the rapid build up of fluid in the heart and lungs, which is exactly what happed to me in February. However, it was encouraging to hear from my oncologist that there are clinical trials underway specifically for patients that had a powerful response to immune therapy, but had to be discontinued because of an autoimmune response. If the cancer comes back, this will most likely be our treatment plan. In 2017 there is no cure for stage 4 lung cancer, but there are plenty of options to keep it in check for an extended period of time. The advances that have been made over the last 5 years are moving in the direction of making lung cancer a chronic illness instead of a terminal illness.

Now that things are quieting down, I am planning to take lung cancer awareness and the story of my journey to the next level. Currently, this blog is the only channel I use to create awareness. I am planning to reactivate my Facebook profile and create a page dedicated to my story as well as to increase awareness for lung cancer in young nonsmoking patients. I am still in the planning phase, but I plan to have more narratives, photos, and videos to help illustrate my journey as well as use it to track advancements in lung cancer treatment. I will be sure to post a blog update when everything launches later this fall.

In the meantime, I have added an option on the right hand side of the blog page that allows readers to sign up for email updates. This feature will send subscribers an email every time there is a new blog post. I highly recommend subscribing to this feature so that you don’t have to keep visiting the blog to check if it’s been updated. On the right side of the page type your email in the field below “Follow By email”, click “submit”, and follow the instructions in the pop up box. This should make it more convenient to follow the blog.

I expect to take a few weeks off from blogging while I begin preparations for the Facebook page. Unless something unexpected happens, I expect the next blog post to occur when the Facebook page goes life within the next month.