Stage IV ALK Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: Stephanie's Patient Story

What happened, in summary

Stephanie was diagnosed with Stage IV non-small cell lung cancer in December 2024, shortly after turning 44. She had been healthy, working full time, raising 2 teenage daughters, and recovering from COVID when a hacking cough returned. She treated it like a stubborn cold until she coughed so hard that she broke a rib. The pain finally sent her to the hospital. What she thought was pneumonia quickly became a biopsy and then a cancer diagnosis. At diagnosis, doctors found tumors on both ovaries, lesions in her spine and liver, and disease in her lung. Stephanie had never smoked and had thought of lung cancer as an older person’s or smoker’s disease, so hearing “Stage IV” immediately made her think of a terminal diagnosis. Her doctors avoided giving her an expiration date and reframed the disease as incurable but manageable. They planned chemotherapy while waiting for genomic testing. As Stephanie sat in the infusion chair on December 23, the doctor called to say the cancer had an ALK mutation. She still received 1 chemotherapy infusion, but the plan shifted toward ALK-directed targeted therapy instead of staying on chemotherapy. Follow-up scans became better over time. As of February 2026, Stephanie was responding to treatment, learning how to talk with her daughters about the diagnosis, and using her story to advocate for ALK-positive lung cancer research.