Need some cheering up

Hi all, I haven't posted before but I'm a very avid reader of this forum. My boyfriend is in his mid-30s and was diagnosed with stage IV melanoma in early February with 3-4 brain metastases (they're not sure about the 4th yet – could just be a blood vessel – 1 was very large but the others are <1 cm) and some in his lungs, too. As far as we know there is no cancer anywhere else, although they're doing another full-body PET scan and MRI next week. He had a craniotomy for the largest brain met, then did WBR + SRS, and now he's about to start the Ipi/Nivo immunotherapy combo next week. So they're treating him pretty aggressively.

Unfortunately the lung mets are progressing rapidly. One tripled in size in just 6 weeks — they did a CT scan in early February and did another one this past week. 🙁 The largest lung met can't be surgically removed, partly due to its location and because there are other mets in his lungs so the oncologist says it's just not worth doing the surgery (also he's only 7 weeks out of brain surgery, where he had some significant complications afterwards and almost died… thankfully he's doing a lot better brain-wise now although still has significant headaches without painkillers). He started showing lung-related symptoms early last week with coughing, audible wheezing, slight shortness of breath and chest pain, so the doc ordered a CT scan and called later that night with the bad news re: significant growth.

So far the doctors don't think this will change the treatment plan, since he is still able to do most of his daily activities, can climb stairs etc. and we all know immunotherapy has the best chance of long term success. But I'm scared about how quickly the lung metastases are growing and the fact that they're impacting his ability to breathe. 🙁 I'm scared that the cancer will outpace the immunotherapy.

They don't want to put him on BRAF inhibitors because, due to the funding situation here (we're in BC, Canada), that could prevent him from going on immunotherapy afterwards — the immunotherapy combo program he's on right now might not be funded in the province for more than a year. So they want to get him on immunotherapy ASAP.

Not sure why I'm posting but just looking for reasons to be hopeful 🙁 We moved in together just 2 months before this all started. He's had melanoma twice before — once in 2010 (mole removed), then a recurrence in lymph nodes (Stage III) in 2014, and now this.