Texas Nurse Diagnosed with Stage 4 Lung Cancer: Symptoms, Treatment, and Survival Rates

KOMPAS.com – A woman from Texas, United States (US) named Tiffany Job (37) was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer.

The woman, who works as a nurse, previously experienced pain in her right rib which started in March 2020.

The pain is caused by pulled muscles due to exercising at the fitness center or gym. Feeling that the pain was getting worse, Tiffany decided to go to the doctor.

Later, scan results showed a malignant tumor in his lungs that had spread to his neck and bones.

“I was in denial, like ‘this didn’t happen’ and it was very surprising,” said Tiffany, quoted by the Daily Mail, Sunday (14/1/2024).

Also read: Reflecting on the Case of a Bekasi Elementary School Student Who Was Slided and His Leg Amputated, These Are the Causes and Symptoms of Bone Cancer

Early symptoms are felt

Tiffany revealed that not long after her muscle was pulled, she felt a series of other symptoms appear.

In fact, during a climbing activity he undertook in July 2020, he could barely walk a few meters when his heart rate spiked and he became short of breath.

A month later, Tiffany also suffered from a cough that wouldn’t go away. The doctor then performed blood tests and prescribed antibiotics and steroids.

However, he said that none of the drugs helped.

After that, in September 2020, Tiffany went to the doctor to have a pulmonary function test (PFT). This test measures the volume and capacity of the lungs, as well as how air moves through them.

“I failed miserably (in the test),” said Tiffany.

Doctors even said that Tiffany had the lung capacity of an 80 year old person. That raises some pretty significant concerns.

Over the next few weeks, doctors speculated that the disease could be caused by sarcoidosis.

Sarcoidosis is an inflammatory condition caused by an excessive immune reaction which can be caused by Covid-19 to tuberculosis.

Finally, after spending days in isolation, scans showed that Tiffany had stage four non-small cell lung cancer.

The cancer had even spread to his pelvis, right femur and neck.

Also read: Get to know the symptoms of lung cancer that appear on the fingers

One of the deadliest cancers

According to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), lung cancer is the deadliest type of cancer in the US.

This disease accounts for one in five cancer deaths, followed by colorectal cancer which causes one in 10 cancer deaths.

About 53 percent of cases are diagnosed when the disease has spread to several other organs.

Most lung cancers are diagnosed at an advanced stage because symptoms do not appear until the cancer has progressed quite rapidly.

Survival rates also drop significantly in these cases, with less than 10 percent surviving five years.

Only one in four lung cancer patients survives after five years.

There are two main types of lung cancer, namely small cell and non-small cell.

Non-small cell lung cancer is the most common type, accounting for nine out of 10 lung cancer diagnoses, and usually grows more slowly.

Lung cancer symptoms

Reporting from the American Cancer Society, most lung cancer does not cause any symptoms until it has spread.

However, some people with early stage lung cancer do have symptoms.

The most common symptoms of lung cancer are:

• A cough that doesn’t go away or gets worse
• Coughing up blood or rust-colored sputum
• Chest pain that often gets worse when breathing deeply, coughing, or laughing
• Hoarseness
• Loss of appetite
• Unexplained weight loss
• Hard to breathe
• Feeling tired or weak
• Infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia that don’t go away or keep coming back
• A lot.

If lung cancer spreads to other parts of the body, it can cause:

• Bone pain (such as pain in the back or hips)
• Nervous system changes (such as headaches, weakness or numbness in the arms or legs, dizziness, balance problems, or seizures), due to cancer that has spread to the brain
• Yellowing of the skin and eyes (jaundice), due to cancer spreading to the liver
• Swollen lymph nodes (collections of immune system cells) such as those in the neck or above the collarbone.

Also read: 11 Symptoms of Lung Cancer in Women, One of which is Back Pain

Exposure to cigarette smoke increases the risk of lung cancer

Doctors say smoking is one of the main causes of lung cancer.

Although Tiffany says that she has never smoked, exposure to cigarette smoke has also been shown to increase this risk.

Additionally, men were almost twice as likely as women to get lung cancer in the 1980s. This is caused by high levels of smoking and exposure to substances such as asbestos in the workplace.

But as cigarette use declines and safety regulations increase, that pattern has changed. Where, young and middle-aged women now have a higher rate of disease diagnosis than men.

Some evidence shows that this condition is caused by women being slower to stop smoking.

Tiffany’s tumor had a genetic mutation known as EGFR (epidermal growth factor receptor). This means that cancer causes an excess of EGFR protein which can accelerate the growth of lung cancer cells.

In addition, this also makes him eligible for clinical trials of drugs that specifically target the mutation.

“The prognosis for lung cancer is very poor, and chemotherapy doesn’t have a good track record, especially for the subtype of cancer,” said Tiffany’s husband, Nick.

However, Tiffany said, despite the new therapy, the main tumor in her lung continues to grow, and her current treatment is no longer effective.

“We don’t know what will happen to us in the end, so we might as well just live each moment,” he said.

Also read: Study: Living Near a Highway Increases the Risk of Lung Cancer

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2024-01-16 09:30:00
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