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Lisa66

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    Lisa66 reacted to LaurenH for a blog entry, Bill & Heather's Story (Part 1)   
    My wife, Heather’s lung cancer was discovered by accident. She was having an abdominal CT scan when the doctor noticed a small shadow on her lower right lobe. She subsequently had a chest CT scan. The Thoracic surgeon felt it was pneumonia scar but it was too small for a needle biopsy so he ordered a PET scan.
    We went for the PET scan and the radiologist who did the scan also read it and told her immediately that she did not have cancer. (It was not until a couple of years later that I actually read the report which indicated that there had been mild FDG uptake in the upper left quadrant of this spot.) She started having follow-up CT scans every 6 months. On one scan, the report came back that the spot had diminished in size. We were excited because cancer doesn’t shrink but unfortunately not informed enough to know that positioning during the scan can make a difference. She was then moved to an annual CT scan.
    Heather had her annual scan in July 2012 and we went to her parent’s cottage at the beach for a couple of weeks. When we returned home there a message on our machine to call the Thoracic surgeon’s office for her appointment. This was a new surgeon as the previous one had retired. She called the office and the receptionist said she was booking her for an appointment to see the surgeon because of the growth in her lung. The receptionist assumed that our family physician had informed us. I immediately called our family physician who was doing rounds in the hospital and asked him what was going on. He didn’t realize that the appointment would be set up so quickly and apologized and we made arrangements to meet at his office. We are fortunate to have such a wonderful family physician who we used as the center for all future appointments and advice.
    Heather underwent a wedge resection on Labour Day weekend 2012 to remove her tumor.  The tumor tested positive for NSCLC Adenocarcinoma and was scheduled for a lobectomy to remove the bottom lobe of her right lung. This operation was performed on the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend in October, along with a wedge resection of a nodule in her middle lobe and Lymph node sampling from the mediastinum and hilar. She was Stage 3a T2N2M0 with metastasis in three different lymph node stations. All her lymph nodes also had vascular involvement. Her oncologist patted her knee and told her that she had a 15% probability of surviving 5 years.  On New Year’s Eve, ending 2012,  Heather began  4 rounds of chemo, Cisplatin and Navelbine followed by 25 radiation treatments.
    This has been a journey with many ups and downs with a few scares along the way but she is currently stable and enjoying life.
     

  2. Like
    Lisa66 reacted to LaurenH for a blog entry, Kyle McCarthy   
    My Dad was always my Ironman when I was growing up. In 2004, my dad had a persistent cough. He went to the doctor a few times and was finally diagnosed with pneumonia. A year went by and the cough went away for awhile. When it returned, my dad went back to the doctor. He was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer. I was 17 at the time.
    After he was diagnosed, my Dad signed up for Heather Saler’s Lung Cancer Walk in Pennsauken, NJ, which eventually became Breathe Deep South Jersey.  My dad didn’t do the full walk, but he was part of the survivor ceremony. I went with him and that was how we found out about LUNGevity and decided to start fundraising.
    My dad passed away in 2006, less than a year after he was diagnosed, but he taught me so much during that time. I saw how strong he was during his battle. He never gave up and gave it everything he had.
    My dad was a photographer. When he passed away in February 2006, my girlfriend (who is now my wife) and I put together a show with all of his photos at a local restaurant. People could come just to see the photos or they could buy them to help raise funds for LUNGevity. The second year, people who were impacted by cancer, either themselves or a loved one, donated artwork for the show.
    My dad was also a runner. He ran several marathons. I ran my first marathon, the New York City Marathon, in 2016. I wanted to strive for something more challenging so I decided to do the Ironman Lake Placid for Team LUNGevity. Lake Placid is the longest running Ironman event in North America and this is 20th Anniversary year, so it will be a great event. It consists of a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike ride, and a 26.2 mile run.
    Doing an Ironman is going to be the toughest thing I ever attempt. I wake up at 4:30 or 5:00 a.m. and either swim, bike, or run for about an hour, then go to work, come home, and train again in the evening. I’ll be training for about seven months total. I’ll be posting my Ironman journey throughout my training all year long on Facebook. I’ll also post stories of my Dad and news from LUNGevity. And hopefully when I finish that Ironman, I will be wearing something LUNGevity.
    If anything is going to inspire me to complete this Ironman, it is my Dad. The least I can do is try to raise money for lung cancer research in his name. Every dollar counts and every life matters. I hope that my fundraising efforts will make a difference in the fight against lung cancer. Maybe it is the dollar that helps find the cure, maybe it helps give someone affected by this disease sometime of motivation or maybe it just makes people more aware of lung cancer.


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