Stage IV lung cancer survivor: Targeted therapy and surgery left me cancer-free

As a retired firefighter and combat veteran, I’ve been in some pretty tough situations. But the hardest thing I’ve ever done was sit my four children down and tell them I had stage IV lung cancer.

Two weeks earlier, they’d watched me lay one of my co-workers to rest after he’d died of stage IV pancreatic cancer. He was only 33. He was also a close family friend, so they had a front-row seat to his decline. They were worried I was next.

Fortunately, I chose MD Anderson for my lung cancer treatment. And in six months, I went from having tumors in my lungs, lymph nodes, ribs, and abdomen to showing no evidence of disease.

My lung cancer diagnosis

I was only 41 when I was diagnosed with lung cancer in September 2022. My first symptom was a dry cough that hung around after I recovered from a cold. My wife asked me repeatedly to get it checked out. When I finally did, the doctor thought it might be pneumonia and prescribed steroids and an antibiotic. 

Nothing changed after a few weeks, so my doctor did some blood work. The tests kept coming back negative. Meanwhile, I was starting to feel worse. An X-ray revealed an area of concern in the lower lobe of my right lung, so my doctor sent me to a pulmonologist for a CT scan and a biopsy. Those results showed I had adenocarcinoma, a type of lung cancer.

MD Anderson has expertise in lung cancer with my specific genetic mutation 

I initially sought treatment for lung cancer in Milwaukee. That’s the big city closest to my home in Wisconsin. But after getting a second opinion at MD Anderson, I decided to receive all of my care there.

With stage IV lung cancer, I already knew I was behind the eight ball. I was fighting for my life. So, once I found the best place in the nation for cancer care, it was hard to leave that and go anywhere else. 

At MD Anderson, I met first with Dr. Carl Gay, a medical oncologist specializing in the treatment of thoracic cancers. He’s also an expert in a genetic mutation called anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) fusion, which my lung cancer had. 

When I first found out about the mutation, I thought, “Great. Now, I’ve tested positive for something else.” But it turned out to be a blessing. Diseases with mutations often have more specific treatment options available than those that don’t. So, it was the best thing that could’ve happened to me. It meant we could use the genetic mutation against itself. 

In the end, I found both the mutation and Dr. Gay’s expertise reassuring. Even though my doctors in Milwaukee were on the right track, none of their five thoracic medical oncologists were ALK specialists. And at MD Anderson at that time, 9 out of 15 were.

My lung cancer treatment

Dr. Gay and his colleagues reviewed my care plan after confirming my diagnosis. They all agreed: they wanted me to discontinue the chemotherapy that I’d started in Milwaukee and stay on an oral targeted therapy agent called alectinib instead. They’d seen some really good results with it and wanted to reserve chemotherapy as an option for later.

I took their advice. After only two months on that drug, the tumors in my lungs had shrunk by 50%. I could breathe a lot better. All of my lymph nodes were returning to normal size, too, and the area in my abdomen that had previously shown cancer activity did not light up on scans at all.  

Surgery is not usually an option for patients with stage IV lung cancer. But MD Anderson has been a leader in offering surgery when appropriate, even with stage IV disease. And, they have enormous experience in performing operations on metastatic lung cancer. I did so well on the targeted therapy that surgery became an option for me. I jumped at the opportunity. It felt like my first chance to do something to strike back at the cancer, instead of just reacting to whatever it was doing.

Thoracic surgeon Dr. Mara Antonoff has a special interest in surgery for stage IV lung cancer and a lot of experience in performing it. She removed the middle and lower lobes of my right lung on March 24, 2023. I spent three days in the hospital and another week resting. When the pathology report came back, even my doctors were shocked. The cancer was completely gone. No living cancer cells could be found in any of the tissue samples taken from my lungs or lymph nodes. It was unbelievable.

Why I tell everyone to go to MD Anderson

In my mind, going from a stage IV lung cancer diagnosis to no evidence of disease is nothing short of a miracle. So, I feel blessed.

I had to take a medical retirement from firefighting, though, because the risks of smoke and chemical exposure were just too high for someone with my medical history and lung capacity. But I feel so good now that I’ve been savoring my time with family and friends. I’ve also been training again for an IRONMAN triathlon. I expect to compete in my second one of those on Sept. 8, in Madison.

That’s why I tell everyone to go to MD Anderson. With a stage IV diagnosis, I didn’t think I could ever be cancer-free, much less that fast. And I am so incredibly grateful.

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