Steve Harrision survived lung cancer | carboplatin | pleural fusion | pemetrexed | bronchoscopy
DESCRIPTION:
When Steve Harrison experienced fatigue, back soreness and shoulder pain in 2024, he attributed it to his “getting old.” He was in his early fifties. But when he began to have difficulty breathing, he sought medical attention. Because Steve also had asthma, his doctor had COPD, she prescribed an inhaler. That did little to no good. He saw another doctor who ran a variety of tests, which found pleural fusion. After a bronchoscopy and a biopsy, he was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer. In addition to chemotherapy, the oncologist prescribed a TKI inhibitor, known as tagrisso. After nine treatments, he was taken off chemo, but remains on tagrisso, which is not a cure, but a treatment, and has allowed Steve to get on with his life. He would say his health is roughly 70-80 percent of what it was, pre-diagnosis.
Steve’s San Diego job as a construction inspector was physically stressful. That’s why when was getting tired more often than usual, when he had back and shoulder pain, he did not immediately seek medical attention because he thought it was part of getting old. But things went from bad to worse. In addition to having shortness of breath, he began to get night sweats. He thought he could address these issues with Tylenol and Theraflu.
He finally went to his primary care doctor who listened to his chest, thought he had COPD and gave him an inhaler. That worked for one day, then didn’t work at all. On a visit to the Grand Canyon, the 6,000-foot elevation really made it tough for him to breath. In addition, he was constantly tired and sore all over. Upon returning to San Diego, he went to the emergency room.
Steve underwent a variety of tests. Doctors found pleural fusion, which is fluid inside the lung. They said the fluid needed to be removed. A thoracentesis was performed, which removed about 400cc of a yellowish fluid. Once it was out, Steve could breathe again. Then he underwent another test, a biopsy. It indicated Steve had metastatic Stage IV lung cancer, which had metastasized from the base of his skull to his spine.
The cause of the cancer was a mutation, EGFR exon 19 deletion. The oncologist prescribed a two-pronged chemotherapy regimen of carboplatin and pemetrexed for the lung and for the mutation, a TKI inhibitor known as tagrisso.
Steve suffered the side effects generally associated with chemotherapy. During his nine treatments, he experienced fatigue, cognitive issues and food tasted terrible. His oncologist eventually took him off the chemo, kept him on the tagrisso.
The bone lesions eventually disappeared, and Steve’s health has returned to about 70-80 percent of what it was before his diagnosis. Steve says the tagrisso is not a cure, but does keep his lung cancer at bay.
By way of advice, he says science has come a long way, so much so that a diagnosis of metastatic Stage IV lung cancer should not be considered a death sentence. He also urges anyone diagnosed with the disease to “dive deep” and stay mentally strong even when it seems that is very hard to do.
Additional Resources:
Support Group:
The A Breath of Hope Lung Foundation https://www.abreathofhope.org
Steve’s YouTube channel EFGRandme
TRANSCRIPT
Bruce Morton: Welcome. This is the @Cancer Interviews podcast and I am your host, prostate cancer survivor Bruce Morton. A long line of nasty symptoms ganged up on our guest before he was diagnosed with Stage IV metastatic lung cancer, a diagnosis as daunting as it sounds. But Steve Harrison of Columbus, Mississippi has a story of survivorship to tell, a story that should be of inspiration to anyone diagnosed with cancer. Now here he is, and Steve, welcome to Cancer Interviews.
Steve Harrison: Thank so much for having me. I appreciate it very much.
BM: Before we get to your story and quite a story is, we would like to learn more about you. If you would, tell us about where you are from, what you have done for work and what you do for fun.
SH: I I was born and raised in Canada and in 2009, I moved to California to be with my wife. When I moved there, I ended up in the construction inspector apprenticeship in Sacramento. When my wife I got a job in San Diego, I moved down there with her. I was fortunate to work on some really great projects. It was a great job and a great climate. I have been married since to 2009. In 2025 when things started changing with my health that we moved to Mississippi
BM: We have already mentioned at the top that you encountered many symptoms in 2024, which led to your diagnosis. What were they?
SH: It was kind of funny because every single symptom that I had, my mind explained it away. For instance, fatigue. At the time I was 52 and figured I was getting older and not as energetic as I used to be. The job required a lot of walking, standing on concrete, standing on rebar. Even though we didn’t work as hard as the people doing the actual work, it was still tough work. Then I started experiencing some pretty strong back pain. I had been in some physical jobs, so the back pain wasn’t unusual to me, but it got to a point in which I was in really bad pain. If I were doing an oil change in my truck, I could barely roll over, get on to the creeper, things like that. Then I would say in the late fall or early winter of 2024, that’s when I had a lot of difficulty breathing. I had shortness of breath and night sweats. I would wake up soaking wet just from sleeping. Then there was shoulder pain. That was something I wasn’t expecting, probably December 2024 is when the should pain really set in, both shoulders. Normally when you injure your arm or something like that, you can find a position that makes it feel better. With this, it didn’t matter what position I was in, it was this deep, deep throbbing pain, and the only way to get rid of it was to take Tylenol. Those were kind of the general symptoms I was experiencing. To get through that time, because of the breathing issues, I would take Theraflu to get by, Tylenol, ibuprofen. Those were the symptoms, more or less
BM: When symptoms materialize, we have heard from guests who sought medical attention right away and those who did not. In which camp were you?
SH: I did not seek medical attention right away. As a kid I had asthma all the time and frequently I would see people much sicker than I was in the hospital, and I would say to myself, “I don’t know why I am here. These people are way sicker than I am,” even though I was pretty sick at the time. I thought I really needed to be in bad shape to go to the hospital. These days I am more cautious. I am more aware of my symptoms and if I see something unusual, I just go.
BM: When you sought medical attention, what was the initial diagnosis?
SH: In December 2024, when I went to my primary care doctor, she said that because I had asthma, my breathing problem was probably COPD. She listened to my chest, gave me an inhaler and sent me home. I took the inhaler one time and thought that feels better. After that I took it every day and it was useless, it didn’t really do anything for me. In December, we took a trip to Columbus from San Diego. On the way back, my wife suggested we go to the Grand Canyon. At first, I balked because I had to get back to work and I am tired. Then I thought to myself, what if I never get a chance to see this again. That should have been a wakeup call because really, who thinks like that? So, we went to the Grand Canyon and I was completely out of breath, probably because of the elevation, 6,000 feet. My wife was fine, but I was just struggling to catch my breath, just walking a little bit. When I got back to San Diego, I talked to my doctor and said my breathing is getting really bad. She said she should order some bloodwork and x-ray my chest. In January 2025, I went to urgent care because I was struggling to breath, my energy was low, I was sore. Unfortunately, the experience wasn’t the greatest. She basically me she didn’t know I wanted from her and that I would have to wait for results from a CT scan that was scheduled for five weeks later. I felt bad about going to the doctor because they were saying I wasn’t sick enough. Then on Presidents Day 2025, that’s when it came to a head. That’s when it was bad. Just terrible. I was on the couch on Presidents Day, a day off, and my wife said I did not look good at all. When I was breathing, every time I would inhale, my ribcage would expand and I would get a shock, like a zap. So, I would be struggling to take a breath, not a deep breath, but just a breath. I was coughing up pink sputum and concluded this is not right. My wife said she would take me to the emergency room, and that is when everything unfolded.
BM: That said, what led to your cancer diagnosis?
SH: After being admitted, they threw the gamut of tests at me, x-rays and CT scans. I had an MRI. They found pleural fusion, which is fluid that is inside the lung between the pleural cavaity and the lining of the lung. I had to have a bronchoscopy, in which when you are under an anesthetic, they have a look around and saw something on the scan that warranted a biopsy. They took biopsies, then the doctor came in with the IV poles and that stuff, and a big, long needle. He said there was fluid that needed to be removed. I had a thoracentesis and they pulled out about 400cc of this yellowish fluid. I had no idea what was going on. From that moment, I discovered that I could breathe again. I said to the doctor, “Let’s do this again next Tuesday,” and he said hopefully not, because that procedure is not normal. That fluid was building up so much in my lung that it was displacing my lung to the point where I couldn’t breathe. So, at that point, my inability to breathe was solved. Then they had to do a biopsy of my hip. They found something there, and they figured it was cancer. The doctor who did the thoracentesis said it looked like malignancies were indicated. I wouldn’t come out and say what it was, but I scheduled to be with a new oncologist about three weeks later.
BM: And what happened when you saw that oncologist?
SH: So, he basically just laid it out and said I had adenocarcinoma metastatic Stage IV had spread to my bones. I had lesions from the base of my skull and down to my spine. The cause of this was EGFR exon 19 deletion. At some point, there was a mutation in there that is like a light switch. Your body highly regulates the production of certain cells, like on-off, on-off. Well, one of the lesions, left that switch on, resulting in the constant making of cancerous cells.
BM: By the way, we hope you will find time to like and subscribe to our channel. And if you click on the bell icon, you will be notified any time we post an interview. We also want to remind you we are not distributors of medical advice. If you seek medical advice, please consult a licensed healthcare professional.
So, now Steve, you had been diagnosed with lung cancer that had metastasized. That sounds like a very steep hill to climb. Did you have treatment options?
SH: Well, I asked him to be very frank with me. He basically laid it out and said if I do nothing, I will have six months to live. That news hits you like a freight train. He said they had treatment options. There was chemotherapy and this exon 19 deletion has a treatment, a TKI inhibitor, osimertinib, more commonly known as tagrisso. He suggested a protocol, from a study called Flora 2, which he said had the highest success rate. Once I had the diagnosis, that was the treatment he suggested, and that is the treatment that I followed.
BM: Was following that suggestion an easy decision?
SH: Not at all. I just wasn’t ready to give up and I was going to fight this. I was going to fight for me, I was going to fight for my family, and I am going to do this. The first three chemotherapy treatments I had carboplatin as one of the chemo drugs and pemetrexed as the second. The tagrisso was started immediately, so, the first three treatments went pretty fine, actually. There was a bit of fatigue after a couple days. Just going slow and tired, not being able to do much. It went pretty smooth. I was getting scans. The first scan didn’t show a terrible amount of difference. After the first three treatments, though, that’s when I declined and the fatigue was bad. I was starting to get side effects, and by the sixth treatment, which was every three weeks by the way, I would end up with a high fever with three or four days after treatment to the point in which my body temperature would spike to 103. They had me in the emergency room and they would do the protocol to bring my fever down. There would be swelling of the legs and feet, just these typical side effects that you would see from chemotherapy, lack of sleep, just overall malaise.
BM: At what point did you detect that things were moving in a good direction?
SH: I would probably say around the tail end of chemotherapy, around my eighth or ninth treatment, the oncologist said the side effects were getting to be too much. He said we could keep going, but it is not beneficial, and he felt that tagrisso was that drug that is actually helping me because after the second scan, we saw a decrease in size and number of my lesions. There had been so much. If you looked at a scan of mine, the lesions on my spine would light up like a Christmas tree. After those first two or three months of not having chemo, I felt okay, I was starting to feel better. I feel like I can do this. The scans were just reaffirming what I already felt. I still get scans every three months, but things are looking really great.
BM: At what point did you reach No Evidence of Disease or are you headed in that direction?
SH: The CT scans will still show a mass in my lungs. There remains debate as to whether it is live tissue or if it is dead. The only way to know is to remove, and that is not really an option. The thing with tagrisso is that it is a treatment and not a cure, so it is really like putting a thumb in the dam, but at some point, people build up a resistance to tagrisso, just like most drugs. For some people it is a year and a half, for others, they are still on it, years later. For me right now, I am just really happy that it is working, and long as it is working and the scans show all clear, that’s great.
BM: Steve, if you would, think back to your health before your diagnosis. Let’s call that 100 percent. These days, how close is your health to 100 percent, and if it falls short, in what ways does it fall short?
SH: I would probably say between 70 and 80 percent right now. Where I fall short, I still have issues with mental clarity. I forget things. Mentally, that’s the hard part. The body fatigue, some days I feel great, I can do whatever I want. Other days I am wiped out. I just go with the flow. If I feel tired, then I rest a little bit. I still try to push myself. I go for a walk, I try to push myself a little but more.
BM: You had mentioned earlier that your lung cancer diagnosis had spread to your bones. What is the state of that phase of the diagnosis?
SH: The lesions are almost gone, but the damage from the lesions puts me at risk for fractures. I have been given medication to rebuild the bones.
BM: We are about conclude and we toss to you the question with which we usually conclude. If you ran into someone freshly diagnosed with lung cancer, or one who thinks there is the possibility of their being diagnosed, that person might have a lot of questions and you a lot of answers; but if there is one thing you really hope this person would remember from your conversation, what would it be?
SH: I will say two things. Number one, cancer isn’t what it used to be. Stage IV metastatic cancer used to be a death sentence. It does not mean that anymore. There are so many treatment options today that were not available just a few years ago. If you think you have this and you have been diagnosed with this, dig really, really deep and find that strength. In your mind, that attitude makes all the difference in the world. You have the food that you consume that is important, the support from your loved ones, but your mindset will make all the difference in the world and you need to dig deep, even when you feel like you can’t.
BM: Excellent. That’s sage advice from a survivor. Steve Harrison, Columbus, Mississippi, thank you so much for being with us on Cancer Interviews.
SH: Thank you, Bruce. It has been a sincere pleasure. Have a great day.
BM: You, too, and we want to remind you that if you or loved one have been diagnosed with cancer, you are not alone. There are individuals like Steve Harrison that have words of wisdom that can ease the cancer journey. So, until next time, we’ll see you on down the road.
Additional Resources:
Support Group:
The A Breath of Hope Lung Foundation https://www.abreathofhope.org
Steve’s YouTube channel:
EFGRandme
SHOW NOTES
TITLE: Steve Harrison, Stage Four Lung Cancer Survivor – Columbus, Mississippi, USA
When Steve Harrison experienced fatigue, back soreness and shoulder pain in 2024, he attributed it to his “getting old.” He was in his early fifties. But when he began to have difficulty breathing, he sought medical attention. Because Steve also had asthma, his doctor had COPD, she prescribed an inhaler. That did little to no good. He saw another doctor who ran a variety of tests, which found pleural fusion. After a bronchoscopy and a biopsy, he was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer. In addition to chemotherapy, the oncologist prescribed a TKI inhibitor, known as tagrisso. After nine treatments, he was taken off chemo, but remains on tagrisso, which is not a cure, but a treatment, and has allowed Steve to get on with his life. He would say his health is roughly 70-80 percent of what it was, pre-diagnosis.
Additional Resources
Steve’s YouTube channel: EFGRandme
Time Stamps:
02:43 Many symptoms ganged up on Steve in 2024.
05:56 Describes his initial, non-cancer diagnosis.
09:12 Asked what led to his cancer diagnosis.
13:15 Steve is asked if he had treatment options.
15:05 Describes his treatment regimen.
16:52 Support from his wife was key.
18:26 Recalls when his treatment was moving in the right direction.
19:43 Is asked if he has reached No Evidence of Disease.
20:58 Steve compares his present health to what it was before he was diagnosed.
22:15 Is asked about the state of his bones to where the cancer had spread.
23:29 His advice to others diagnosed with lung cancer.
KEYWORDS (tags):
stage four metastatic lung cancer
carboplatin
pemetrexed
bronchoscopy
pleural fusion
thoracentesis
EFGR exon 19 deletion
TKI inhibitor
tagrisso
osimertinib
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