reccurence - 1250660

Hi magida1, I'm sorry your dad wasn't cured after surgery. I know how very difficult it is to move from hope of cure.
Your dad's fatigue is very likely due to WBR which starts a few weeks to a month or 2 after WBR is ended. Chemo also causes fatigue. Both are expected to lift but I understand and saw from my husband's experience can be quite debilitating while it lasts.

Below is a link to a blog post on the subject of hoarseness written by Dr. Weiss because it was such a common question on the forum.

We can't tell you to be worried or not. That needs to be determined by his doctors who has all his information. His doctor needs to be told of all new symptoms such as the cough and mucus.

http://cancergrace.org/cancer-treatments/2011/04/16/hoarseness/

I hope this helps,
Janine

I'm also sorry to hear about your father's recurrence after surgery. The hoarseness is like from nerve damage that is very likely permanent. Because of that, it can't be presumed that even a good response will lead to improvement in that hoarseness. Otherwise, as Janine noted, we can't answer a question like whether someone should be worried. In the setting of metastatic cancer, it's very hard to predict how someone will do.

-Dr. West

Anything is possible with cancer is just one of the mantras I both love and hate. It maybe that he needs to find a way to rid himself of the mucus that is developing of which there is physiotherapy and drugs.

One thing for sure is you want to follow up with his doctors asap when airway obstruction is in question.

Keep us posted,
Janine

Don't be afraid. Coughing is very common in lung cancer. It's also common to make strange breathing noises - these can be for all kinds of reasons, from an infection to an obstruction. The bubbling noise is scary but it doesn't mean he is dying (if that is what you are afraid of) - it is just the sound of fluid in his airway or his lung. As everyone has said, keep in touch with his doctors and update them with any changes you notice.
Your dad is going to be very tired at the moment - for me, the fatigue was at its worst a month to six weeks after the treatment. But it should get better. All best.

I can't say adequately or enough about how helpful it is to have your first hand knowledge and experience certain spring, (this woman is amazingly bright and educated) (no pressure wanting or to be inferred). But as long as his doctor knows what's going on and has addressed it, I hope the process can evolve into a solution. I'd like to say the first try at a solution is enough, or will or should always work but it doesn't often enough work that way in lung cancer. He needs to start trying what the doctors suggest. These types of complications are why lung cancer has such a bad rap and Grace is so helpful. I went from 1970, the year before the "war on cancer" began in the US and the year I turned 11 and my dad died of an unknown primary to today when my husband is stage IV and has surpassed his first year since dx (the age my dad was dx and died to well into his 3rd year).

All that to say, hang in there. Do what the doctors say. The nurses are a great source of practical info as well, OK, sometimes the nurses are my first go to people.

Janine

As Janine indicated, it's certainly possible for cancer to progress while someone is receiving chemotherapy, but it does sound like his throat clogging is more related to mucus -- an infection or inflammation -- than to progressing cancer.

Good luck.

-Dr. West