Hello Paulzy and thanks for your post,

I am sorry to hear that you are having treatment for lung cancer.

It is difficult to know too much without being involved in your care but normally the doctors would want the wound to be completely healed before you start chemotherapy.

Chemotherapy can effect your immunity lowering your white blood count making it harder for your body to fight an infection. We have some general information about how chemotherapy works.

Chemotherapy is normally given in cycles also described as rounds. These occur every 1,.2 or 3 weeks depending on the type of chemotherapy that the doctors may decide to give you.

It will become clearer when you know the type of treatment and how often you will receive it.

Once you have had three rounds/cycles of treatment the doctors will probably do an x-ray or scan to see how well the treatment has worked.

The side effects that you may experience will depend on the type of treatment that you will be given. We do have pages on our website about side effects for specific drugs when you know the type you will be getting.

There are generally two main types of lung cancer which include small cell lung cancer and non small cell lung cancer. I am not sure which type you have but we have a general page on our website about lung cancer treatment which you might find helpful to look at.

Every patients treatment is very individual and the doctors take in to account the type of lung cancer as well as how well a patient would respond to any treatment. as well as how fit a patient is. The dose of a drug is worked out on the height and weight of a patient so the dose is specific to that patient. There are now so many different tests that are performed on lung cancer tissue so the doctors can identify the best treatment.

Before each cycle of treatment the doctors will review you with a blood count so it is important to let your team know if you are experiencing any side effects as there are different drugs that they can give you to help minimise any side effects that you get.

I do hope that your treatment goes well. Do give us a ring if you would like us to go through any treatment once you know what you are going to be offered.

If you want to give us a ring to speak to the helpline nurses are number is Freephone 0808 800 4040 and the lines are open Monday to Friday 9 am to 5 pm.

All the best,

Catherine

Hi I too have lung cancer stage 4 in my right lung a a brain tumour Mets, so no surgery for me  I had SRS to my brain followed by 10 rounds of radiotherapy to my lung.

I then had 4 rounds of two types of chemo plus immunotherapy each ‘round’ is a session, get some ginger biscuits in just in case you feel unwell with sickness etc, I was never actually sick but did feel incredibly nauseous. I didn’t actually fancy anything to eat I wasn’t even hungry, but knew I had to eat & a couple of ginger biscuits with a cup of tea was all I could manage, after all the happy drugs I had prior to treatments starting. But it will depend on the chemo they give you as to how you feel, & even if someone has the same chemo as you, your side effects can be very different.

wish you all the best with your journey xx