Faith, Hope, Love and Humor

The beginning of 2003 found my breathing and respiratory system really acting up. It was a year of continual infections. I'd finish one anitbiotic and start another one. During that year I really became dependent on supplemental oxygen. Starting that Christmas 2003 I developed an allergy to Avalox. My internist decided to put me in the hospital between Christmas and New Year's to find out what was causing all the infections. On January 1, 2004 my doctor came into my hospital room to tell me he discovered a tumor the size of a golf ball in the upper lobe of my right lung. After every test that could be performed in the small valley where I live I was sent to Seattle, Washington's Swedish Medical Center's Cancer Center. After a CT scan-guided needle biopsy the results came in. Stage 2B lung cancer: as the doctors put it "the garden variety type" - non-small cell.

Following the CT scan my lung had collapsed a few times - what fun. Anyway while sitting in the hospital bed listening to each doctor that came to see me, I did some real soul searching. The one thing I could not do was ask "why me" because the answer was "why not me". I was no one special that I should be exempt from the cancer. Now what do I do about it. I could take it out on all the people close to me or I could turn it all over to my Higher Power. After all He is up all night anyway - I did and I slept at night.

For me, mentally, lung cancer was a breeze to handle. Chemo was my treatment of choice as I was not able to have surgery due to the severity of my COPD. The following 7 months I went once a week for chemo (except twice when I ended up in the hospital - bladder infection) and finished with seven weeks of daily radiation. By the end I felt like an absolute wet noodle - but I was alive. Both my medical oncologist and my radiation oncologist are people with great senses of humor and very positive outlooks. Never for a minute did I doubt what I was doing.

It has been regular PET/CT scans since, and of course, a few days of worry but I am now starting my third year of remission. One of the things that I am very committed to is getting the message out that Lung Cancer has a definite stigma attached to it and until we correct that, the funding for research will continue to fall far behind the other cancers. Early detection is another matter that each of us survivors need to emphasize. If we each speak out about detection and research maybe we can begin to change the statistics.