My husband 77yrs old was at the end of January 2023 diagnosed with lung cancer met brain and in the adrenial gland.

Hi Tues and welcome to the Online Community but so sorry to hear about your husbands diagnosis. 

A cancer diagnosis like this in the family can be such a challenging and stressful time but getting support from others who are dealing with the ‘exact same' support challenges can help a lot.

The Community is actually divided into Support Groups (Discussion Rooms) and when it comes to the practical and emotional challenges of supporting family and friends you may benefit from joining and posting in our Carers only and Supporting someone with incurable cancer support groups where you will connect with others navigating the exact same support challenges.

To join a group first click on the “Bold Links” I have created above then once the group page opens click on “Click to Join” when the black banner appears or “Join” under “Group Tools” (this all depends on the device you are using)

You can then put up your own post when you’re ready by clicking “+new” or “+” in the top right next to the group title. You can copy and paste the text from this post into your new post. You can also scroll through other members posts and click “Reply” to get involved.

Our Support Line teams are available 7 days a week, 8am-8pm on freephone 0808 808 00 00, email or live webchat where you will find one of team there to help you out. We also have our Ask an Expert section but do allow a few working days for a reply.

Talking to people face to face can be very helpful so do check to see if you have any Local Macmillan Support in your area, do also check for a local Maggie's Centre as these folks are amazing.

Do get back to me if you need further help navigating the community.

Hi Tues

Chemotherapy really alters your sense of taste.  For a lot of people everything tastes metallic for a week afterwards and then like cardboard for another week, only starting to taste palatable just before you're due for chemo again.  Temperature and texture can also make foods seem inedible.  Strong flavours often help.  I used to take my steroids with chocolate mud cake because steroid are terribly bitter.

Fatigue is normal.  Exercise helps, even if it's just walking laps of your hallway (I had chemo during covid lockdowns so this is how I got exercise).

Talk to the team about managing side effects.  There are plenty of ways to boost calories without increasing the amount of food your husband eats.  Mouth care is important as we're prone to developing mucositis when we're having chemo and that makes eating extremely painful.

Let us know when you have the imaging results and we can suggest other things based on those.