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Andy’s Story

Site created on March 10, 2019

In October 2018 Andy went to the doctor with pain in his right side ribs. They took an x ray and saw a mass on his right lung. He went through cat scans and found he had a tumor in each lung. The right lung is non small cell squamous cell and the left lung is non small cell adenocarcinoma. So onto Abbott Northwestern hospital in Minneapolis for biopsies. The tumor on each lung was contained to the lung. So he was stage 1. Super!!! They decided that they would treat the right lung first as the tumor on the left lung was much smaller. They talked it over and told Andy the best thing would to do surgery on the right lung and take the bottom 1/3 of his lung. He would not need any more treatment for it. Andy asked if he could wait until after Christmas as our whole family would be here. They set his surgery up for Jan. 21st. at Abbott.

The surgeon told us the surgery would take about 5 hours. All his siblings were there and his son and daughter in law. He said he would call us to a conference room when they finished. Cool! We were so happy for him to get this over with,although we knew it would be a long recovery.

Well, at 3 and a half hours they called us to a conference room. We instantly knew something was wrong. The doctor came in and told us when they got in their they found it had metastiszed outside the lung. It was in the lining of the lung. This had not shown on his scans. The tumor was larger than they thought also. So they did take the tumor and took the cancer they saw outside the lung, but of course did not remove the 1/3 of his lung. No sense in putting him through that. We were in shock as we went in thinking it was stage 1. He remained in the hospital for about 4 days. He is still sore from the surgery. The cancer center at Abbott is connected with Faribault so he will have the rest of his doctoring in Faribault which is 10 minutes from his home. We went in to see the oncologist a few weeks after the surgery. He said chemo was his only option besides doing nothing. He said is is fairly fast growing and he is looking at 10 to 12 months life expectancy. Andy asked him if he took chemo how long would he have and he said it would give him a couple of extra months. If he did not have chemo 4 to 6 months.

He did not want to go through chemo for only a couple extra months. He wanted more quality of life. We all told him we were behind him in whatever he chose. Last Friday he decided to try it.

So, tomorrow we go in for scans and education on chemotherapy. They will be setting up a surgery to put his port in and set up his chemo dates. I got an apt. right above him and will be his caregiver and taking him to his appts. He may not make it through chemo and knows he can quit any time. He is frail and lost alot of weight. He is not a candidate for immunotherapy at this time, as his PD-1 level was not high enough.

I will post here to let you know how he is doing and any changes.

We would, as well as Andy appreciate it if you would keep him in your prayers. He is in pallative care now. His cancer team has been so wonderful all through this journey. Our hearts are sad and keeping hope all the way for him. He is a son, a brother, a father , and a grandpa. We have his back all the way.

Thanks,

Team Andy!

Newest Update

Journal entry by Roxie Sanders — Jan 14, 2020

Hello all. I have a new update on our lil bro.
Fri. he started with pain in his left lung that shot through to the shoulder blade. On Sun. he finally told us about it. But he managed to make it to his grandsons wrestling meet. On Mon. morning he was in severe pain. We thought maybe it was pneumonia. We took him into ER and they did a cat scan. The dr. wanted to rule out a blood clot and check for pneumonia. He had neither. It's the cancer causing this and now his lymph nodes have fluid in them. They admitted him as his oxygen was only 84%. So he will be on it for the duration of his life. His oncology nurse told him he needed hospice now and she will no longer be involved. She hugged us all and we all thanked her for all she helped us with in palliative care. We are going to miss her.
They have been uping his morphine today. So tomorrow he goes home. Hospice will meet with us and tell us what they all do. I pretty much know as I went through it with my stepson Todd and our younger sister. I know they are wonderful. They will bring him a hospital bed, wheelchair and oxygen machine plus a portable he will take home from here. He will stop all of his meds except his thyroid pill and pain meds as they stop taking his vitals too.
It's been a tough and sad couple days. We knew it was inevitable, but it came on so sudden. Reality hit us all. Because he opted out of treatment he has had a good year . She told him if you have a good day go do something and he will we will make sure of that.
So I will give you updates along the way. I ask you if you would send up some prayers for him.
Thanks everyone.

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