My husband was diagnosed with Stage 3 lung cancer in December. He had 30 rounds of radiotherapy as well as 5 infusions of Chemotherapy.
His tumour shrank to half the size when this finished in March. Since then he has 2 rounds of immunotherapy and now is experiencing the worst side effects.
He had chronic fatigue nausea and since starting immunotherapy a nasty cough has developed.
He had a CT scan yesterday and we see the oncologist on Thursday.
He had spoken to his immunotherapy nurse who said he shouldn’t have a cough as a side effect!
He doesn’t believe that it can take over 3 months to feel better from the radiotherapy even though I recorded the oncologist saying it.
I must point out that despite all these side effects he is captain of the seniors at his golf club and when he is playing golf he forgets about the nausea though coughs all the way round the course! He played yesterday and is playing again today and just gets upset when I say he needs to rest in bed for a day. Instead when he is home he is in and out of bed all day sleeping for two to three hours at a time.
Others experiences or advice would be so valuable.
It is so cruel as only last year my beautiful young daughter in law died from a Glioblastoma brain tumour leaving my grandsons without a mum and my son without a wife.
Hi Aria1 a very warm welcome to the group, but I am sorry you find yourself here. I haven’t had immunotherapy myself so I cannot share a personal experience with this, hopefully someone who has will be along shortly. I would definitely be asking the oncologist about this cough, but I do believe it is a side effect I have seen people mention before. I have had radiotherapy, I had 5 sessions over one week. You are right, it can take over 3 months to fully recover from this, it really knocked me out for a year! It stays in your body for such a long time, which is good in a way because it is continuing to do its work!
I think it is great he is playing golf, and if he needs days after to recover that is fine, and I would say completely normal. Sleep is the best way for his body to recover.
I am so sorry to hear about your daughter in law. I hope your son and grandsons are getting support with that.
Good luck with the oncologist on Thursday, please do let us know how he gets on.
I'm so sorry to hear of your worry about your husband, and the loss of your lovely daughter in law so recently. I don't know if this will help you, but I had a year's worth of immunotherapy following chemo and radiotherapy in 2019-2020. For some odd reason, immunotherapy seems to work best in people who experience side effects from it. So for me, my psoriasis was aggravated, but it was bearable. However, within just a short time of starting immunotherapy I developed quite a bad cough, which was diagnosed as pneumonitis which my oncologist treated with dexamethasone for two weeks. I'm now left with pulmonary fibrosis, ie a permanent little cough that I'm told will not go away. I don't know whether it's from the radiotherapy or the immunotherapy. And I get breathless quite easily. These things are annoying, but I've survived all this time, so for me it's quite a small price to pay. So looking back it seems I had a new infection as a result of the immunotherapy which did need treatment - but the consequences will not now resolve any further. I hope this might help to throw some light on what your husband is experiencing. Be sure to talk over his symptoms with his oncologist tomorrow.
Thank you for you response. Sometimes you hear so many contradictory opinions from those who haven’t been through it.
your reply is extremely helpful
We saw the oncologist today and what she said mirrored your experience. It is Pneumonitis and he has a very inflamed lung and lymph nodes. He has been put on a high dose of steroids and a week of antibiotics.
The oncologist with humour said he should be flying in a couple of days with all the steroids.
Thank you so much PamelaAnne for your response yesterday.
We are reassured that the cancer has not grown and it is inflammatory.
She did say no more immunotherapy as his immune system has shown it is working without it. We are just hoping he responds well to the medication now.
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