Stage 4: 492 Real Stories
492 stories match stage 4. 319 of them mention chemotherapy.
Stage IV Lung Cancer: Shyreece’s Patient Story
Shyreece Pompey’s Stage IV lung cancer care changed when biomarker testing opened a different treatment path. She had first been placed on a chemotherapy cocktail. Later, testing showed that a targeted therapy pill was an option, though the mutation and drug…
Read this storyStage IV ALK Lung Cancer: Shyreece’s Patient Story
Shyreece Pompey had been teaching for 17 years when her first lung cancer symptoms appeared during a school day. While dancing with students during a brain break, her arms suddenly felt heavy, she became deeply fatigued, felt a throb or skipped beat in her…
Read this storyStage IV HER2-Positive Breast Cancer: Loli’s Patient Story
Loli was 63 when she shared the story of having breast cancer 3 times. About 4 years earlier, she felt a hard area in her breast, like mastitis, and quickly saw her gynecologist. An urgent ultrasound and biopsy led to a HER2-positive breast cancer diagnosis…
Read this storyStage IV Inflammatory Breast Cancer: Caroline’s Patient Story
Caroline McGuirk first noticed that her right breast felt tighter in September 2020. Over the following weeks, she developed swelling, redness, and dimpling, and later felt masses behind the nipple. Because she was 31 and otherwise healthy, breast cancer had…
Read this storyStage IV Breast Cancer: Claire’s Patient Story
Claire Jacob first had breast cancer at 36, while running a communications agency focused on the art market and raising a 9-year-old daughter. She said she did not stop working during that first cancer. The more difficult moment came in 2016, when the cancer…
Read this storyStage IV Breast Cancer: Marie-Pierre’s Patient Story
Marie-Pierre Bertrand was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer when she was barely 50. Before the diagnosis, she had strong fatigue and struggled to get through normal activities. A lymph node was found in 2014, and a mammogram led to the discovery of…
Read this storyStage IV Breast Cancer: Simone’s Patient Story
Simone sought medical care after developing headaches and sharp, shooting pain in her left breast. She was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer and had not yet started cancer treatment when she shared her story. The diagnosis left her overwhelmed, helpless…
Read this storyStage IV Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: Abby’s Survivor Story
Abby Kanarek was 60 when a backache led to an X-ray that showed a lung mass. Soon after, temporary leg numbness and loss of movement on the left side of her body sent her to emergency care, where scans found the lung mass plus a large brain tumor and 5…
Read this storyStage IV Gastric Cancer: Jeanne’s Patient Story
Jeanne Guercia had recently turned 70 when her daughter shared her story. Jeanne had taught English at Chalmette High School for many years and had expected to continue teaching, but stomach cancer forced her to retire. For more than 6 months, she had…
Read this storyStage IV Gastric Cancer: Buddy’s Patient Story
Shortly after turning 72, Buddy began having serious difficulty eating and increasing fatigue. In July, he was diagnosed with cancer at the gastroesophageal junction, where the stomach and esophagus meet. The disease was Stage IV and had spread to an adrenal…
Read this storyStage IV Gastric Cancer: Karen’s Patient Story
Karen Lucas began having difficulty eating and losing weight while recovering from shingles in 2012. When the problems worsened, her family encouraged her to have an endoscopy. A mass was found at the gastroesophageal junction, and she was diagnosed with…
Read this storyStage IV Gastric Cancer: Patricia’s Patient Story
Patricia Etienne was diagnosed with Stage IV gastric cancer in June 2020 at age 59. She had considered herself healthy, worked as a group fitness instructor, and had no underlying conditions. The diagnosis initially left her fearful and defeated. Over the…
Read this storyStage IV Gastric Adenocarcinoma: Doran’s Patient Story
Doran Barro was a healthy, active 75-year-old woman living in Arizona when she began feeling acid reflux, early fullness after only a few bites, nausea, and a tightening sensation in her stomach in March 2014. After repeated testing, she was diagnosed on May…
Read this storyStage IV Gastric Cancer: Ernie’s Patient Story
Ernie Pierce was 62 when an operation expected to remove his gallbladder instead revealed Stage IV gastric cancer on March 31, 2008. He had spent almost a year seeking answers for early fullness, worsening discomfort, pain, and significant weight loss, but…
Read this storyStage IV Lung Cancer: Anne’s Patient Story
Anne LaPorte spent decades as a nurse and had already lived through lung cancer as a caregiver. Her father was diagnosed with very advanced lung cancer in 2008 and died after moving to hospice. In 2017, her daughter was diagnosed with Stage IV Hodgkin…
Read this storyStage IV Lung Cancer: Jeff’s Patient Story
Rhonda and Jeff Meckstroth met while working at a fire station in rural Ohio and built a life together on a farm. During harvest season in 2015, Jeff developed a persistent dry cough. He was soon diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer and was told he might have…
Read this storyStage IV Lung Cancer: Keasha’s Patient Story
Keasha Draft was 37, strong, vibrant, and a never-smoker when Stage IV lung cancer suddenly changed her and Chris Draft’s life. Chris was known to many people from his NFL career, but this story centers on Keasha and the advocacy that grew from her illness…
Read this storyStage IV BRCA2 Invasive Lobular Carcinoma: Julie’s Patient Story
Julie is an emergency medicine physician in Maryland, a wife, and a mother of 3. In October 2019, soon after a family trip to Italy, she noticed a small indentation on the outer part of her right breast while getting out of the shower. A mammogram did not…
Read this storyStage IV Lung Cancer: Steve’s Patient Story
Steve Castellaw was 72 when a lump on the side of his head led to an MRI, surgery, and biopsy. The next day, he learned he had Stage IV lung cancer. The tumor was in his left lung and had spread to his right pelvis, the L1 and L2 vertebrae in his spine, and…
Read this storyStage IV HER2-Positive Gastric Cancer: Bryan’s Patient Story
Bryan Chagolla was 38 when worsening abdominal pain, loss of appetite, heartburn, and nearly 40 pounds of weight loss led him to the emergency room in 2019. A biopsy confirmed Stage IV gastric, or stomach, cancer. The cancer was HER2-positive and had spread…
Read this storyStage IV Breast Cancer: Màrius’s Patient Story
Màrius Soler is a man with breast cancer and the founder of INVI, an association created to make men with breast cancer visible. His story began with a small lump behind the nipple. Like many men, he did not immediately think of breast cancer and waited about…
Read this storyStage IV EGFR Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: Ashley’s Patient Story
Ashley’s later lung cancer segment focuses on living with an incurable but treatable disease. By this point, she had already gone through genomic testing and had chosen care at a larger cancer center about 90 miles away. Her cancer was EGFR-positive non-small…
Read this storyStage IV EGFR Lung Cancer: Ashley’s Patient Story
Ashley’s lung cancer treatment changed because genomic testing found an EGFR-positive cancer with the T790M marker. This part of her story focuses on how she was able to start osimertinib, also called Tagrisso, soon after it became FDA-approved for her cancer…
Read this storyStage IV EGFR Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: Ashley’s Patient Story
Ashley was 36 when an unrelated gynecologic infection led to the discovery of lung cancer. She was admitted for a Bartholin gland infection, and an abdominal CT scan incidentally captured the lower part of her lungs. Small lung nodules were seen. At first…
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