Prayers for recovery! My dad had a great outcome, so hang on tight to hope. :)

Best wishes and warmest regards for success, a full, and fast recovery!!!

In general I have not met many people who took chemo and felt better. In fact some people do badly. I do not want you to get your hopes up about this. Your friend has advanced cancer. She may get a respite but the prognosis for cancer at a later stage is not good. I would expect your friend is not going to feel better for a while. Some people do indeed get a respite but chemo is hard to tolerate.

hey Maresie, I know and I thank you for your honesty...I am very cautiously optomistic...I've seen stories where the patient beat it, some did not....I think they caught it pretty early, at least that is what they are saying....I guess time will tell......expectations are cautious and not too high....but where there is life, there is hope....when her purpose here is done, then she will go...IF HP has more stuff for her to do, then she will stay.....and I told MY doc., if I ever get cancer, i will not do chemo, I will let go, use holistic approach and if I go, I go....I believe in a happy afterlife, so I'm good with it.....I know Kerry wants very much to live and SHE says she has more to do....I hope she is right....

Just a little input from my dads experience. And maybe the pills are different. My dad had no sickness from the pills. Some thinning hair & a little thought fogginess. He said overall he felt no negative side effects. I know everyone responds differently. I just really, really believe in hope. HP is still in the miracle making business. I pray her response to the medication is as positive as my dads. I know the severity of that diagnosis & its scary. My dad just asked me to keep hope. I will pray for her, her family & friends.

Well maybe measured hope. Hope she has a better day. Your friend has Stage IV cancer. That is not a good stage. Lung cancer is not a good cancer with a prognosis that is long term One thing thst we do to survive as a child is to #live on hope# i will get married and this situation will make up for this. I will get a #new family# I will get a great job and it will make up for this. That #hope# certainly kept us alive as a child. Then when we get to be adults we have to start looking at that hope. Maybe I am not going ti get a six figure job Maybe I am not going to have a husband Maybe this is isnt the job I always wanted . There were noble and really solid reasons for you to have that kind of #hope# as a child. Chemotherapy certainly helps a lot if people. I know people who have had teo cancers. Their chemo was gruelling but they had a different kind of cancer. They reached the five year mark I also know a woman who had Stage 1 breast cancer, became a cancer activist and her cancer took her pretty fast We do not know what Betty died of. Some people have a bad reaction to chemo some do well. Maybe your #hope# can be measured on a day by day basis. . There is nothing whatsoever wrong with wantng your friend to be better. What if she diesnt get better are you going to be devastated and shocked like you were with Betty. Take it slow day by day.

Maresie
I think I said on my post that yes where there is life there is hope and where there is a God there is hope however, that said, I also said that my expectations were very low and I believe realistic. When Betty died I cannot say that I was devastated but I was shocked and I was in grief and I will miss her for the rest of my life because she meant so much to me but I always held out that feeling that this could go badly and it did. My expectations beyond What I can do for myself are very low in comparison To how I felt when I was a little child just full of unrealistic hope that my family would get better, that my offender would leave me alone, that my mother would stop drinking. Yes I had hoped as a child for things to get better that never would get better

As to Betty, yes I was very brokenhearted and saddened and surprised that she passed so quickly but I was also grateful that she did not suffer very long and that she was taken very fast and spared a long and agonizing death. I will never completely give up hope if it is realistic. I have talked to many people about this type of cancer and yes it is bad. But we dont know what is in the mind of God and what he has planned for my dear Friend. She could do OK or she could not do OK I will not know but I just love her one day at a time and thats all I can do

I think what was so surprising about Betty was that her boyfriend wrote to me and had said to me that she was going to the recovery room and was going to contact me and then all of a sudden she passed. So yeah I was very shocked and I was devastated I did not get to tell her one more time that I loved her but I knew in the back of my heart that we could lose her. And we did lose her and the way I can tell her I love Her now is to bless others with the things that she blessed me with

I believe even when people are very ill it is hard to imagine they are leaving us. None of us knew Betty was ill because she did not tell us. That was her prerogative. her choice and one I respect I certainly had a lot of hope as a child becauss my parents were not able to taje care of me. Then at certain points in my adolescence I realuzed helo wss not coming I believe that hope I kindled daily as a child which helped me immensely as a child was not that effective as an adult. In fact it led me to stay in a lot of relationships that were really not that great. Of course everyone is different. I still have a lot of hope of course for a better life and a more realistic living standard. I hope your friend does fell better and the chemo brings her some relief. I have had a lung disorder (which began oddly enough after my last visit to my mother) and it is pretty hard to do anything if you cannot breathe. I miss Betty a great deal. I know Betty really worked a fierce prigram and had tremendous empathy and compassion for others. That is a sucessful life by any means. Betty also relished her life on the lower east side. After tragedy that is an incredible achievement. Betty led a very good life and I got to benefit by it because no matter what she always had a kind word for me.

Prayers for a positive outcome!!