Mr. Lu, 72 years old, has been having a low-grade fever and cough since the new crown sun in December 2022, went to the hospital for CT examination, and found that an irregular soft tissue density mass shadow could be seen in the posterior basal segment of the lower lobe of his right lung, with a size of about 3.7cm × 4.1cm, with shallow lobules, small nodules and a few cords around it.
At that time, Mr. Lu's family took the film and asked many doctors in the hospital, and the doctors' initial diagnosis was lung cancer, no lymph node metastasis, but it was difficult to say whether there was metastasis in other parts of the body, so the doctors asked Mr. Lu to be hospitalized immediately for a detailed examination, and then the doctor would evaluate whether the operation could be performed.
The doctor told Mr. Lu's family that if there is no cancer metastasis in other parts of Mr. Lu's body, it is not advanced lung cancer, and surgery can be done, and there is a high probability that treatment should be required after surgery.
According to the doctor's advice, Mr. Lui's family wanted to arrange for Mr. Lu to be hospitalized immediately for a tracheoscopic biopsy and to check for metastases to other parts of his body, but Mr. Lu stubbornly refused to be hospitalized many times. Mr. Lu always said that he was just a little cough, and there was no need to stay in the hospital, wasting money!
Mr. Lu's family communicated with Mr. Lu many times, and even told him clearly about his condition and what the doctor said, and persuaded him to go to the hospital for treatment. After many communications, Mr. Lu finally said what was in his heart, saying that he didn't want to do the tracheoscopic biopsy, nor did he want to have surgery, let alone radiotherapy and chemotherapy, which was very painful and over-treated.
Mr. Lui felt that overtreatment would only make him leave early, and that he could live a few more years without treatment. No matter how Mr. Lu's family persuaded him, Mr. Lu was still stubborn and did not stay in the hospital for examination. In the absence of follow-up examinations, no one knows what stage of lung cancer Mr. Lu has at this time.
After repeated persuasions to no avail, Mr. Lu's family also gave up and allowed Mr. Lu to do nothing at home. Mr. Lu didn't take any medicine or treatment except for the occasional cough medicine, so it lasted for half a year.
Half a year later, by June 2023, Mr. Lu's cough frequency has increased every day, and he can't lie flat at night and can only lie on his side, which is obviously more serious than half a year ago. Mr. Lu's family persuaded Mr. Lu to go to the hospital for a follow-up CT scan, but Mr. Lu still disagreed, saying that there was nothing to check for anything.
Mr. Lu is not only reluctant to have a re-examination, but even his usual life is the same as before, even though he knows that he has lung cancer, he still does not smoke and drink, smokes 3 cigarettes a day, how happy he is, even if the cough is getting more and more frequent, he still does not change.
Mr. Lu's family members are very helpless about Mr. Lu's behavior, but this is Mr. Lu's own choice, and Mr. Lu's family can only choose to support it no matter how reluctant they are, because they feel that since Mr. Lu is unwilling to be treated, they should try to make Mr. Lu happy in the last period of time, and let Mr. Lu do whatever he wants.
Later, Mr. Lu's cough became more and more serious, and Mr. Lu's family couldn't stand it, so they advised Mr. Lu to see a Chinese medicine doctor to treat his cough if he didn't want to be hospitalized. Mr. Lu may have been tortured by the cough and couldn't stand it anymore, so he agreed to see a Chinese medicine doctor and take Chinese medicine.
After Mr. Lu took Chinese medicine, the symptoms of cough were relieved for a while, but overall it became more and more serious, which had nothing to do with whether the medicine was effective or not, but because Mr. Lu's lung tumor had been getting bigger. By October 2023, it may be that the tumor has grown larger again, and Mr. Lu has a terrible cough again, especially at night, and he can't sleep well.
Mr. Lu's family looked uncomfortable and took Mr. Lu to the clinic for anti-inflammatory injections, but the anti-inflammatory injections could not stop the cough. There was no way, Mr. Lu's family could only turn to Chinese medicine again, Chinese medicine could relieve some of it, and there was no other way, because at this time, Mr. Lu was still unwilling to go to the oncology department of the hospital for treatment, and only Mr. Lu could accept Chinese medicine.
In the following months, Mr. Lu still relied on taking traditional Chinese medicine to support him, and until February 2024, Mr. Lu successfully passed another year of Spring Festival. At this time, on the surface, Mr. Lu looked fine and could still eat and sleep, but in fact, Mr. Lu had begun to feel back pain, and he urinated more and more frequently at night.
Mr. Lu did not disclose these new physical conditions to his family, but secretly took painkillers to relieve the pain. It was not until March 2024 that Mr. Lui's family found out that Mr. Lu had secretly taken medicine. Later, after inquiring and learning that Mr. Lui's condition had worsened, Mr. Lui's family persuaded him to be hospitalized again.
Mr. Lu, perhaps because it was too painful, finally did not object this time, was admitted to the hospital, and began to have a comprehensive examination that should have been done a long time ago. The CT results showed that Mr. Lu's tumor in the lower lobe of the right lung had grown to about 10 cm×9 cm × 6.9 cm, and there was right hilar lymph node metastasis, right rib metastasis, right pleural metastasis, and right pleural effusion.
After the CT scan, Mr. Lu underwent a needle biopsy, a full-body bone scan, and an MRI of the head. After all the test results came out, it was confirmed that Mr. Lui had lung squamous cell carcinoma with bone metastases, but no brain metastases. Then the doctor gave Mr. Lu a bone guard injection and did a pleural effusion drainage, and the pleural effusion drained by Mr. Lu was still blood-red, which was scary to look at.
Then, the doctor asked Mr. Lu to undergo radiotherapy for two weeks to see if he could control the development of cancer cells. At the end of the two-week radiotherapy, Mr. Lu began chemotherapy combined with immunotherapy. This treatment should have been done by Mr. Lu more than a year ago, but he still couldn't escape after being so late.
After Mr. Lu underwent the first chemotherapy and immunotherapy treatment, there was still a lot of fluid in his chest, and the compression of the pleural effusion caused him to have difficulty breathing, causing Mr. Lu to suddenly faint when he was resting at home, and he fell off the chair and kowtowed. For this reason, Mr. Lu's family took Mr. Lu to the hospital in advance to have his pleural fluid removed.
Before the second chemotherapy, Mr. Lu took more than 2,000 ml of pleural fluid before he felt that his breathing was easier. After the second chemotherapy, Mr. Lu had some nausea and vomiting for the first week, and the symptoms were relieved after a week, but due to the large tumor, he still had difficulty breathing, and he still gasped for breath when he moved.
After the third chemotherapy, Mr. Lu was found to have liver damage before being discharged from the hospital, but the overall feeling was improving, and the treatment of immunotherapy plus chemotherapy was still effective. After the fourth chemotherapy, Mr. Lu's bones no longer hurt, and the tumor has shrunk by half, from 10cm to just over 5cm, and the only problem is that there is still pleural effusion, but the amount of fluid is much less than before.
Overall, after four rounds of chemotherapy and immunization, Mr. Lu is getting better now, but it is still too late for this treatment. At the beginning, if Mr. Lu had been hospitalized for examination and treatment as soon as possible, it might have been found out that it was only in the early and middle stages, and he could have undergone surgery, which would definitely be much better than now.
Mr. Lu wasted a year of waiting for the cancer to progress and his condition worsened, and he still had to do the treatment he didn't want to do, so why bother?
It is important to know that in the face of cancer, escape is never a way, if there is still a chance for treatment, you must do it without hesitation, don't wait and don't delay, whether it is surgery or chemotherapy, it is not as terrible as imagined.