Lightning strikes twice!!

[Jinty100]

In July 2012 my dad was diagnosed with Stage 4 adenocarcinoma he died 6 weeks later. On Wednesday my mum was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma and is currently in hospital for a mediastinoscopy as they suspect the clear biopsy result of her lymphnodes was inaccurate. Over the last 8 years my sister and I have fundraised almost £12k for RCLCF in dad's memory, including running the London Marathon, in the hope that we could make difference for other families. We never expected lightning would strike twice!! Mum and dad stopped smoking 25 and 16 years respectively.

[keepinghope2017]

So sorry to hear you are going through this again. Sending positive thoughts across the ether for your mum and your family. 💕

[RoyCastleHelpline Partner Ask the Nurse Roy Castle]

Dear Jinty100

So very sorry to hear about your Mum being newly diagnosed, which must be so awful for you all, especially when you have already lost your Dad to lung cancer. I imagine there must be a degree of disbelief that it is happening again within the family and it is hard to make sense of why these things happen.

Thank you for the wonderful support you and your Sister have been in raising so much money for our foundation , please be assured that this has made a huge difference for many families living through lung cancer. It is our turn to support you in anyway we can.

You may have seen our information booklets on our website, but if not this one provides information on lung cancer diagnosis with treatment options:

roycastle.org/app/uploads/2...

Thankfully Lung cancer treatments are improving and a list of these can be found on this link:

roycastle.org/help-and-supp...

Hope your Mum gets home soon and does not have too long to wait for her results. I imagine you are dealing with a lot of unknowns at the moment, and if you wish to discuss anything you can either email us at [e-mail] or call our freephone nurse led helpline number on 0800 358 7200 (Monday -Thursday 0900-1700 and Friday 0900-1600)

Kindest regards

The Roy Castle Support Team

[Jinty100 in reply to RoyCastleHelpline]

Thank you for the links these are really helpful, I'm in no doubt that at times we'll have more questions than answers, or that these will prompt us to consider things we haven't thought about, so will be useful to refer to. It's been such a journey already just to get the diagnosis, we were hoping to get a treatment plan on Wednesday too, I feel like once we have that we can take back some control, just living life in windows between appointments at the moment. My mum keeps apologising for putting us through this again and while I understand guilt is one of the emotions she's experiencing I wish she didn't feel it because there's no way this is anything other than a cruel twist of fate. We're such a close family, mum's our glue, I'd do anything to not have her go through this. We're devasted to find ourselves here again and while the journey is familiar the road is unknown. Staying hopeful that the destination is a very different one, treatments have moved on a lot in the last 8 years 🤞

[RoyCastleHelpline Partner Ask the Nurse Roy Castle in reply to Jinty100]

Dear Jinty100

Thank you for your post and there is a lot more hope than there used to be for those with lung cancer.

Our website it there to access any information you need, there are many inspirational stories under the campaign section:

roycastle.org/campaigns/

Hope things will seem a little more manageable once you know your Mum's treatment plan.

We will be thinking of you all

The Roy Castle Support Team

[Manninmaid]

So very sorry to hear this. Can only imagine how shocked and stunned you must feel, particularly having already lost your Dad to lung cancer. I hope your Mum returns home soon, gets her results quickly and the most suitable treatment is identified for her. Sending love, positive thoughts and best wishes to you all 💕xx

[JanetteR57]

so sorry to read this Jinty but as you rightly comment, in the last 8 years (9+ since mine) so many more treatments are available, many are changed and many are now offered in combination with others for better results. The type your parents have had are different and now much more is done to determine the characteristics of the tumour and the patient to be more targeted in treatment. The other improvement is in information about the treatments available and living with lung cancer - as you will find on Roy Castle and are no doubt aware from your great fundraising efforts - if you receive updates from the charity. Also much more is known about lung cancers from research and trials in the last feyyears and many lung tumours are unrelated to smoking - borne out by the number of never smokers who develop them so no point getting hung up on when your parents did or didn't give up smoking - the good thing is that by stopping smoking, it will make the treatments more efficient... and improve recovery from treatment.

Also support groups and online forums like this probably weren't available so do make the most of them....

My dad had bowel cancer in his 50s (twice) and had 2 lots of surgery and was my mum's carer (Alzheimer's) when he had another bowel cancer and more major surgery in 2016 - we thought too that lightning couldn't strike twice - but it did - when I saw him yesterday, he's doing well at 90 (apart from the lockdown boring him!)

thinking of you at this time. good luck.