I'm so glad I found this site. There appears to be many caring informative people here. I'm a 55 yr old female living in Alabama. I went to the DR for a head cold and he insisted on a chest x-ray that showed a "spot" in the upper right lung. CT scan 8/31/04 and my Dr said it showed it was cancer. He went on like I was near death and I needed to act now and act aggressively and he referred me to a Pulmonary who biposied 9/7/04 and it came back NSCLC. He told me he didn't think I could survive surgery because of my breathing and, ordered a PET Scan that was done 9/15/04 and left town for two weeks without telling me. I kept calling his office to get the results and find out what I needed to do next and he never returned my calls. I was really upset that no one would tell me anything. One of his nurses finally told me the PET scan showed the cancer was only in that one spot. I lost confidence in this Dr, he didn't appear to care, and referred myself to UAB in Birmingham AL and was seen the day after I called for an appointment!! No doom and gloom, just excersice my lungs... gave me a breathing thingie for that... and told me to walk or excersie twice a day and he would remove 3/19 of my lung on Nov 8 and I would 16/19 left!! He didn't mention Chemo or radiation, just the surgery. To me just the surgery is a big scary deal. But doesn't seem so bad after reading what some of you have had to endure and have maintained such a positive attitude!! I have many questions and will be posting to the NSCLC thread later. Thank you all for being here!!! Paula
