Brenda F

Brenda,

On a Monday evening in February 2004 I was suffering symptoms of a nasty chest cold and I started coughing and it produced blood.  Several days later, in a hospital emergency room I was x-rayed and the emergency room doctor told me I had a very large mass in my right lung.  The mass was causing the blood.

I was admitted to the hospital for further tests.  I had a CT scan, brain scan and bone scan.  Additionally, a biopsy was attempted with a flexible bronchoscope but the mass that was contained in my main stem bronchus of my right lung was so large, it could not be biopsied with a flexible scope. On discharge from the hospital, my oncologist told me I likely had lung cancer. He didn't know the type but suggested the stage could be 3A or 3B. This stage was suggested because the CT and other scans showed no evidence of any other nodules or tumors in my body.  Stage 3B was suggested because of the size of the mass.  It was 7cm long and about 2.5cm in width and completely blocked the main stem bronchus of my right lung. 

I was referred to a thoracic surgeon for biopsy.  The surgeon used a rigid bronchoscope to obtain a sample from the mass and additionally performed a tracheotomy (incision at the base of my throat) to access and sample many lymph nodes around my lungs.  A pathologist was in the operating room and examined all biopsy samples in real time.  The biopsy revealed Squamous cell non small cell lung cancer but none of the lymph nodes contained the disease.  My surgeon staged my disease at 3A but suggested the mass was too large to resect without damaging my trachea whose tissues were too fragile to stitch.

On a post surgical consult, my surgeon reported that surgery was not possible. We'd (my wife who was my fiancée at the time) researched survival statistics for lung cancer without surgery and in those days, the prognosis was dismal. My surgeon referred me to a medical oncologist who was conducting a study of treating lung cancer with conventional chemotherapy with infusions performed in a hypobaric chamber with enriched oxygen. The theory of the study was that the increase in oxygen would make the chemotherapy more effective.  I had a weekend to make a treatment decision.

I told my general practitioner about the surgeon's conclusion and study recommendation.  He left the examining room and called my oncologist (who knew nothing about the surgeon's recommendation yet) and told him to find a way to shrink the mass to allow surgery.  The oncologist prescribed 30 doses of conventional radiation with weekly infusions of taxol and carboplatin. He spoke with the surgeon who agreed to rethink the surgery decision if treatment dramatically reduced the size of the mass.  It did and in May 2004 my right lung was removed.  I was scheduled for post surgical chemotherapy but this never happened because of surgical complications that required two more surgeries to correct.

There is a book called Scanziety available on Amazon that tells the entire story if you are interested.  Click on the word Scanziety and it will take you to the book.  You can read a good deal of it by clicking "Look inside".

That is how I was diagnosed and my initial treatments.  I would have many more to achieve NED.

You asked how I was treated and I assume you mean by my medical team.  I was very fortunate to have a stable of caring, competent and capable doctors.  I believe this was so because my general practitioner personally recommended them.  He'd referred other patients to these doctors, he knew the doctors, and his opinion carried weight with the oncologist and surgeon.  Likely, my general practitioner's refusal to accept no surgery saved my life.

At the time I was diagnosed I was unmarried but engaged to be married with Martha.  After my hospital stay, Martha moved from Lexington, KY to Rockwall TX to help me with treatment. She'd just graduated from a masters degree program in Nutrition and her next step was an internship that would have led to a career as a registered dietitian.  But, she gave up her internship to care for me.  I was fortunate to work for a company that had rich long and short term disability coverages that saw me through my medical treatment.  I also have a feature rich medical insurance policy that covered almost all treatment cost with a very small deductible.  I paid for disability and medical coverages but so did my company.  I had retired military medical coverage (Tricare) but did not use it for any of my cancer treatment.

I would not have been able to go through my treatment alone.  I hope this long answer addresses your request.

Stay the course.

Tom