Gresh & Keefe - Mike Forbes (54) talks about his fight with lung cancer

WEEI/NESN Jimmy Fund Radio-Telethon

After swimming one day, Mike felt strange so went to see his nurse practitioner. She could not hear any breath sounds from his left lung and X-Ray showed a totally collapsed lung and enlarged right lung compensating.

Mike was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer in 2018.

He chose Dana-Farber for his treatment because it is world-renowned and just hours away by car,

Mike has completed multiple treatments during his time at Dana-Farber, including combination therapies, oral chemotherapy, and surgery.

In his spare time, Mike enjoys skiing (snow/water), boating, reading, bowling, and golf. He is married to his wife, Alice.

Mike is a pharmacist and hopes to continue to work (have purpose) as long as possible and enjoy friends and family who provide him love and support.

When Mike was training as a pharmacist in the 90’s, the expected survival (with chemotherapy) was 6-8 months. Thanks to the research at Dana Farber, he was matched up with a targeted therapy giving him 36 months before resistance. Fortunately, Mike was at Dana Farber where the drug was being studied and he had a genotype match with. The FDA allowed this targeted therapy to be used before phase 2 trials completed.