Stage IV lung cancer [View all]

My mother died of it.

She didn't find out she had it until one week before she died, partially b/c our father made her doctor not tell her, but she figured it out anyway.

She knew she had lung cancer, but she didn't know how fatal it was. She did radiation and chemo. Lost her hair and a lot of weight.

Once it's Stage IV, the die is cast. All you can do is prolong your mortality and do palliative care (pain management). So to speak, Stage IV doesn't last very long.

Mom was a former smoker like Rush. She quit 20+ years before the cancer and it still happened.

As much as I like to be right, one of Mom's last comments was that she shouldn't have yelled at me when I was 9 and threw away her boxes of Marlboros.