Steph

Hi everyone, Thanks for all of your wonderful words and encouragement. I spoke to my insurance company and they agreed that is urgent for me to get a second opinion. My hospital is Cedar's Sinai and they are sending me to UCLA. Although I'm trying to be optomistic...I still have that fear of the unknown. I have spent the last couple of days reading your posts and I am inspired by the courage that each and everyone of you show. Keep up the good fight:) Thanks again, Love, Steph

John, I'm really sorry that your mother passed. My heart goes out to you, Steph

Wow! You guys are amazing! Thanks so much for the fast responses! The size of my nodule is a little over 1cm and it is still growing. John, you mentioned something about Non-calicified and calcified. My CT/scan reports say that it is non-calcified. I guess that is not a good sign? I really appreciate all the encouragement. It feels really good to be able to talk with people who know and understand what I am feeling. My doctor has been really dragging his heels, because the testing has been going on for a year now. I guess you could say that I am a little nervous and I'm trying really hard to quit smoking. I've been reading all of your success stories and that has helped alot. You've inspired me to get a second opinion, nothing wrong with my doc personality wise, but my health and life need to be the most important thing right now. I'm not very good at speaking up for myself, which is quite an understatement. I also have an HMO, so I always wonder if that has any bearing on the delay. Anyone else have any thoughts on that? Thanks so much! Steph P.S I forgot to mention I don't have COPD

Hi everybody, Has anyone here had the experience of "watching and waiting" before they were diagnosed and if so, how long did your doctors wait before they did a biopsy of your lung? I have a left upper outer lobe lung nodule. Because as my pulmonologist said, "when you hear hoof-beats you are supposed to think of horses and not zebras," he has spent, in my opinion too much time ruling out other things. We have ruled out every possible infection, running the gamut of TB/HIV/Granulomas etc. I have CT/Scans every three months and the nodule is growing. The symptoms I have are the usual; coughing, pain, fatigue, shortness of breath, weight loss, sputum etc. Can anyone here offer me up some words of wisdom? How long did you wait for a diagnosis? And what kinds of things do I need to say to my doc to light a fire under him? Thanks, Steph P.S Unfortunately I'm still smoking....as the stress of not knowing is "tough"