Lisa was having a lot of chest pain before her radiation treatment today, and mentioned it to the tech. The tech said that Lisa should see the doctor before treatment. Our regular radiation oncologist wasn't in the office, so we met with another radiation oncologist there, and she was really wonderful. She had already heard about Lisa's case, and was very informative and helpful as she responded to Lisa's descriptions and questions. The outcome was that Lisa's pain is not uncommon at this stage of her treatment... since the esophagus is in the radiation field because of the position of the tumor, the lining of the esophagus becomes sort of "sunburned" and painful even when Lisa isn't eating. The doctor suggested using pain meds (Lortab) as a preventive now, even at just half-dose if Lisa doesn't like how the full dose makes her feel, rather than only when the pain gets too much for something like Aleve to handle. Lisa should also be using the once-a-day pill (something similar to Nexium) and a "hour before eating" liquid that she was given a week or two ago but hasn't tried yet.
This doctor was quite surprised when we mentioned that the thoracic surgeon and our primary oncologist had talked about removing the lung -- or at least the full upper lobe where the tumor is -- if the radiation was successful at reducing or even killing the tumor. She said that studies did not show a significant improvement in survivor statistics, and if that's the case, why subject the patient to such a major surgery? She said that lung removal isn't the normal "standard of care" and that we might want to get another opinion, such as from the well-known cancer research and treatment center, MD Anderson, when the time comes, though of course each case is different. That was encouraging to hear... of all of Lisa's potential and actual treatments, having her lung removed was the one that concerned me the most. We'll still have to wait and see, but at least it's not as "definite" as a follow-on to successful radiation treatment as we were originally told... there are options.
Michael
