Remembering Dave

My condolences to you and your family. David C

I met with the Oncologist today to go over the results of my CT Scan which I had this past Friday. He said that there was no evidence of cancer in the Scans!!!!!!!!! Karen and I just kind of sat there stunned when he told us. We had hoped for him to tell us it was shrinking and were just blown away when he said that there was no evidence. He said that there was something going on in the left lung where the tumor was but he thought it was just scar tissue. He said I would not be able to tell if it is deffinitely gone until I could have a PET Scan which he said I could not do until I was finished with my chemo. which I have 2 more rounds of chemo to go. Thank you to everyone here at this site. Prayers have been answered. I will continue to pray for myself and everyone who has this dreaded disease. I am a survivor!!!!!!!!! Now lets concentrate on evryone else here. Come on we can beat this. David C.

Hip, Hip, Hooray!!!! Here is to more days like that!!

Congrats!! You know you feel good when you take a trip to Wal-Mart!!!

Debi, sounds like the people you work with are very supportive, it is a shame that the people you work for are not!!! Shannon is right, you do not need to worry about paying your bills at a time like this. She is alo correct that if it ever comes a time where you feel you cannot make payments to your creditors you need to contact them. I am a mortgage underwriter and have seen this numerous times. The only other thing I would sugest is try not to use one of these consumer credit agencies, again I have seen it numerous times where the borrower makes the payments to the agency and the agency does not make payments to the creditors in a timely manner and it hurts the borrower more. I would file bankruptcy before I would use one of these but contacting your creditors is the first step--enough of that. Good luck with the surgery, you are going to a highly rated place to get it done and we are all here for you. I will say an extra prayer for you. Hang in there and keep us all posted. David C.

Sandy, THAT IS AWESOME!!!!!! Congatulations!!! Keep the positive attitude going and live life to the fullest. David C

Road Trip!! That sounds wonderful. I was in the hospital for our last aniversary. Here is hoping and praying for a clean scan. David C

HIP, HIP HORRAY!!!!!!!!!!!! Enjoy the summer!!!

JAnie, I am so sorry to hear about your'e friend. You are correct that everybody id different and you can only guess what your friend may need. After my first treatment I was a little tired but welcomed visitors. I am in the middle of my 4th round of chemo now. People seem scared to come by thinking I may not want visitors but in my case I welcome visitors and phone calls. Even though fatigue is more than likely going to be a factor with your friend she may still like to just have a friend stop by to talk, help do things around the house etc. I have my wife and my folks and my wifes folks nearby and they have been a tremendous help just keeping the place clean, cooking, making sure I am drinking enough fluids and getting the reccomended anmount of protein etc. Just being there is going to help your friend. There are many differnt chemo drugs and different side effects which go along with the different drugs so as far as specific side effects your friend should get a printout from the doctor as to what to look for. I wish you and your friend the best. David C

Sam, I too am praying for you and a positive outcome. Remember, NO PROBLEMS-ONLY SOLUTIONS. Fishing sounds like a good solution to me!!!

Keep up the positive thinking, you are in my prayers. David C

WOW, New York to Oklahaoma!! Thank God for the internet huh?!?! That move must have been a bit of a culture shock. I was born in Texas and now live in Virginia. I wish I could enthusiastically say welcome but we all know we would rather be anywhere else but here. This is a terrific bunch with lots of good advice. Sounds like you have taken charge of your cure which I belive is the most important thing. We all have our good and bad days but getting on here always seems to help me even though I am a very new member and have not posted much, just reading some of the other postings helps. You can and will beat this. Never let that leave your mind. The power of positive thinking can do wonders. David C

Hello, just saw your posting and all the wonderful responses. This is a terrific bunch here. You will beat this thing. The power of positive thinking is an awsome thing. Imagry is a powerful thing also, it can make your mind and body do amazing things. Find a phsycologist who specializes in it to help you. Your insurance should cover it. I had some introductrion to imagry when I was a proffessional musician (former life) but I was referred to a psychologist who soley works with cancer patients and specialized in Imagry and she reall helped to focus my mind and gave different sugestions as to ways to do the Imagry to erradicate the cancer from my body. I am 38 years old with a 20 mointh old baby girl and I WILL see her get married and have children of her own. There is no doubt in my mind. Remember Len, YOU CAN BEAT THIS! Don't even think about looking at statistics, you are too young to even begin to fit into the statistics, you are a unique individual who will shatter the statistics and see your kids grow up. Keep us all posted on how you are doing. David C

Hello everybody, thanks so much for the support. This site is great. I'm not sure where to post the rest of...or another chapter about me. I looked in the General Posting but it seemed to be more for support than mere biographies maybe somebody can advise me on this. I posted originally under "Hello All". I was aslo a smoker for 20 years-1 pack a day on average. I was a professional musician for 13 years traveling up and down the east coast playing the Trumpet in cover bands, mostly blues/top 40. I received my Music degree and played with in local theaters and with things like Ringling Bros. Circus when they came to town. You know how much it sucks to be an accomplished Trumpet player with Lung Cancer? That is when it all sunk in, when I was in the hospital and realized that I was not going to be able to play the Easter Cantata. That was the low point but I was lucky I had a good nurse who talked and prayed with me. Of course the pain drugs helped with the moment as well, ha,ha. I had actually "hung up" the horn about 5-6 years ago for a full time occupation and am now a mortgage underwriter for a national lender based here in Richmond VA. Well enough of my life history. I pray for all of us. David C

Hello to everyone here. I sure wish I was anywhere else but here. I entered the hospital on 3/23/03 with severe leg cramps and chronic Bronchitis (results of low sodium level, side effect of SCLC). I had a biopsy performed on 3/25 confirmed SCLC and started chemo on 3/27!! I had virtually no chance for it to all sink in before I was started. It is in the Limited Stage with lymph node involvement however I have been told it is inoperable. I have gone through 3 rounds of chemo so far (Carboplatin and VP-16) with 1-3 more rounds scheduled and just finished 30 rounds of radiation treatments this past Friday. I have not had a 2nd opinion performed yet but will be going to Johns Hopkins if treatments do not come out the way we all hope they will. I have a CT scan scheduled for June 6th and I fully expect all traces of Cancer to be gone from my body or at least greatly diminished. The power of positive thinking is a powerful force. I have that and many prayers on my side. I have been praying everyday for God to grant me and my family the strength needed to deal with whatever His plan is for us and I know that he will. I am 38 years old and my wife and I returned from China on 11/2/2002 after adopting our (now) 20 month old baby girl named Faith. I am fortunate that I have a very strong support group including an older sister who works for the National Childhood Cancer Foundation and has assisted me with all my research. I have pretty much figured out that I really do not fit into any of the statistical groups that are published about survival rates. I started researching SCLC and statistics and got very depressed until my sister pointed out a very good article to me which can be found at http://cancerguide.org/median_not_msg.html You may have to read it a couple of times to fully understand it but it is a very good article ( I had to read it more than a couple of times to fully understand it all, you will see what I mean!) I am not sure where I am going with his posting. I am going to beat this thing. I have a family to raise. I have been having a progressively harder time with the chemo although the doctors and nurses all say I am doing remarkably well with the chemo and radiation, guess I can just feel it more as time goes on. This past round of chemo really hit me hard for the first couple of days with not being able to sleep but I feel really, really good today. Well I feel as if I am rambling now. Guess I just wanted to share my story with you all. This is a great site and I have been checking it out for several weeks now. Till next time David C