My Cancer Story

Year One

In June 2025, I was diagnosed with Stage IV non-smoker lung cancer (adenocarcinoma). Treatment is ongoing … most likely indefinitely.

At the time of diagnosis, the cancer, which began with a tumor in my right lung, had spread to other spots in my lungs, to my brain, and to some vertebrae and my left hip.

The only symptoms I experienced at that time were some coughing (which I thought was from acid reflux), some shortness of breath, and some headaches. None of which prepared me for the severity of the diagnosis, which, it turns out, is common for lung cancer. It’s usually a surprise diagnosis for non-smokers.

First they found the tumor in my right lung, which was wrapped around an airway, causing a partial lung collapse.

Then, because I mentioned headaches, they scanned my brain, because lung cancer is famous for spreading to the brain. Sure enough, I had three tumors in my brain, one large one and two small ones.

I was admitted to the hospital and had brain surgery to remove the large tumor conveniently located at the back of my skull. They used that tumor to perform the tests to confirm the exact type of lung cancer. I was in the hospital for nearly a week, but some of that was because nobody was around to discharge me on the weekend.

For the remaining two tumors in my brain, I had a radiation procedure called Gamma Knife, which precisely zaps those areas.

Testing revealed that I had the EGFR mutation of lung cancer, which is a particular type that can be treated with an EGFR inhibitor pill. The pill basically kills cancer cells that match that mutation. That was a tremendous bit of luck. It’s a relatively new treatment option.

A PET scan revealed a few other locations where cancer was active in addition to the lungs and brain: Some vertebrae, and my left femur neck (hip area).

I received a week of radiation treatments on that left femur neck area as part of a study. The medical consensus today is to leave bone metastases alone until they begin to cause problems. This study is looking to see if preemptive radiation treatment provides a better long-term outcome.

In addition to a daily pill, I receive chemotherapy every three weeks. I started in July 2025 and was given pemetrexed and carboplatin for my first four treatments, then it’s been pemetrexed every three weeks since then. This exact combination of pill and chemo treatment has only been around since 2024.

I consider myself fairly lucky. The treatments have been very effective so far. My lung has reinflated and I received a PET scan in March 2026 which showed no cancer activity.

I live a fairly normal life and have no cancer-related symptoms. It hasn’t yet impacted my ability to work. (I work remotely.) I’m not in especially great shape, but I’m not coughing or wheezing anymore, and I have no more headaches.

My life is divided into three week cycles. Every third Tuesday I drive to an outpatient infusion center and receive a chemotherapy treatment, which takes about 10 or 30 minutes depending on the week. (Not counting the hours of waiting.)

There is a fairly predictable period of side effects that occur after each infusion, usually centered around the weekend following treatment, that are annoying but not life-threatening. It feels a bit like having a stomach flu every three weeks.

That’s it, as of July 2026, roughly one year after my diagnosis. Currently I feel better than I did a year ago (excluding the stomach flu weekends). But neither I nor my oncologist can predict the future. It all depends on how the cancer responds to the treatment. All I know is that the response is expected to change over time, because that’s the nature of cancer.

The five year survival rate for lung cancer is fairly poor, especially after it spreads, but the exact type of treatment I’m receiving hasn’t been around long enough for there to be any five-year studies of it yet. However, the survival rate generally does go up for targeted EGFR treatments.

Still, it needs to be said, my treatments are palliative, not curative. That’s a fancy way of saying that unless a miracle happens and/or there’s a massive leap forward in medical technology, they can’t ultimately cure me. They can just try to keep me alive as long as possible.