Hello
My mom has lung cancer and she is 46 years old.
Here's her medical history:
Left breast cancer (03.11.09); T1c(1-2cm) N0 (0/4nodes) Grade II IDC ER+/PR=HER2 (2+on IHC). She completed 6 cycles of adjuvant FAC chemotherapy followed by 60Gy/30fr adjuvant RT completed 05.0810. She was also started on Tamoxifen.
She developed rectal bleeding in February 2010. Colonoscopy in July 2010 showed a stenosing tumour extending from 10-18cm from the anal verge. Biopsy revealed a moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma and pelvic MRI suggested this to be a T3N2 lesion. She was started on Oxaliplatin, capecitabine , bevacizumab. She was admitted in the hospital due to complains of weakness, hypotension and bloody diarrhoea. After it was treated she underwent surgery and palliative colostomy without resection of the colonic primary because it was very adherent to the intra abdominal structures and the surgeon did not want to risk major exploration and dissection in the presence of peritonitis secondary to a colonic perforation. After post operative recovery she had been suffering from peripheral neuropathy and still is. However, she has found relief with TENS.
PET/CT scan showed bilateral pleural based metastatic lesions and a possible left lower lung parenchymal deposit also. the primary lesion did not show increased FDG uptake, possibly secondary to having its blood supply cut off by the surgeon. She was also diagnosed with multiple filling defects in the right lung on CTPA and received therapeutic low molecular weight heparin. She has a clot in her lung vessel for which she gets clexane injections everyday. She had pleural effusions aspirated three times since the start of May 2011, from the right and left side. She got a Groshong central venous catheter and started her chemotherapy (Ondansetron, dexamethasone, atropine, irinotecan). She completed 1 cycle of her chemotherapy. The chemotherapy was discontinued because of a severe infection due to the Groshong line. She was started on antibiotics but the catheter was ultimately removed. After the infection settled and she recovered a little of her strength, she was misdiagnosed with passive pneumonia and was given Tazocin. It was just recently diagnosed as loculated pleural effusion. She also has a collapsed lower right lobe. She had the effusions aspirated 3 times, one time every day.The lobe has shown improvement. She is now complaining of chest pain, pressure on the chest and extreme shortness of breath. She has been on oxygen for about a week now and finds it difficult and tiring to breath without the oxygen mask. The lung saturation however is within acceptable parameters so i dont understand why she finds it difficult to breath without the oxygen. It has gotten so bad that she's unable to talk properly and can hardly complete a sentence without taking breaks. Yesterday night her chest pain got so bad they had to give her morphine which took quite a lot of time to wear off and she felt extremely lethargic. She is complaining of palpitations and says her heart skips beats(for which she was given Metoprolol Tartrate) but no significant improvement is noted. But the doctor says her heart is doing fine, so im really confused. She also feels a tingling sensation around her lips, head and limbs quite frequently and keeps getting these tiny jolts every now and then. What do you suggest we do about that? Overall, she feels extremely weak and is drowsy and lethargic most of the times and im getting really worried because she is showing no signs of improvement. Should she start getting her chemotherapy even though she's really weak? and can you please tell me what to do about her breathing and lethargy?