Debi

I am so happy for you David! You all are such an inspiration! Debi

I have to add my two cents, even though I am relatively new to the boards. My Aunt and Uncle heard I am having lung surgery on the 16th so they sent me this homemade computer card. It has a bible verse on it...something like "I am with you always, even to the end of the world" with a thundercloud on it and signed by them saying that they are praying for me. Okay, now I haven't heard from EITHER of them since I was 16 which makes it 30 years and they send me this damn doom & gloom, its the end of my world, homespun card!! That was a cheery, uplifting hello. They couldn't find another bible verse? LOL My other experience so far was the day I told the people at my job. I had told no one about the tests and appointments I have had the last few months because its a small town and everyone loves drama. I had to finally tell them because I'm going to be gone from work and I didn't want the rumour mill to start. Well, the DAY I told them, all of my employees on my team kept coming up and having me sign their vacation requests. So I figured...okay...they want to get things taken care of for the summer...normally the vacation requests are put in 2 weeks in advance. Before I knew it, the stacks were getting thicker and thicker. People were requesting Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years Day off!!! I finally asked one of the girls...what is this?? And she said, "Well..we thought we better have you sign them, just in case.....". And this is only the beginning I guess??? :0) Debi

Thank you to all who replied; your support means alot to me even though I don't really know you. One of the other posts on the board is about someone's dad that died. It clearly put things back into the proper perceptive for me. I'm whining about my job not paying me and the bottom line is, so what? Yes, its important to have financial security but there are things more important, and finances like so many of you have attested to, always work out someway. My problems stacked up against someone else's...well, I can handle mine right now. Someone once told me that we are all dealt a deck of cards..and chances are that if we could change our deck..we would still keep the same deck. Thanks again to all of you...Eileen I envy you! I used to work for 13 years for a company that treated me like gold now I work for the anti-christ I think!! Mrs. Mike ..I will tell all the nurses hello for you...I'm sure I'll post again before I go in. Tomorrow is my pre-op and I'm actually looking forward to it. I think I'll feel at ease once I see the place.

I thought I would post so that I could talk about my feelings somewhere. Today was my last day of work, Monday is my surgery but I have a few things I have to do this week. I need to clean, stock up on groceries, go to pre-op on Thursday at the Center and I want to have some time to spend with my son before I leave Sunday. I thought I was going to be emotional this morning, I felt it just under the surface but managed to complete the day without breaking down on my job. It was the finality I guess of everything..like so many other people, my work is such a part of my life and starting my leave of absence sort of strikes home the fact that this IS it! People at work gave me a big surprise party with a cake, balloons, gifts and all that. Slightly surreal, but at least they didn't have a pair of lungs drawn in icing on the top of the cake. Seriously, it was nice and I thought I would cry but I didn't. I haven't yet. Found out from my boss that my short term disability isn't 60% of my salary after all, which is what I had been told. It is actually $170 a week which I cannot believe that anyone can actually live on! I'm a bit irate about that..my company is a large corporation which professes (of course) that they look after their employees. My boss was stunned when he got off the phone with the corporate office..all he could do was keep apologizing. I am just fuming, I have worked for this company 4 years and as a salaried management employee have put in MANY unpaid hours in addition to loyalty, blah, blah...and they don't think enough about me or anyone else to have a decent disability plan. My boss told me that the HR person in the Corporate office told him that they didn't want to have a bigger "payout" because this may "encourage" people to be sick. This is so totally ludicrous. They don't want to have a bigger payout because they don't want to pay any more money to get a better policy. But, I found out from the disability insurance people, that the corporate office has a separate policy which pays out 60% with a cap of $1500. Anywhere else, whether salary or hourly, it is 60% with a cap of $170. Sorry for ranting..that was just a blow to my peace of mind. I could've made it through with 60% but now I'm totally at a loss. My boss did tell me that he was going to give me a week of comp time (he felt worse than I did) and I have a couple weeks vacation. So I'll be okay for a little while. I am just so mad that I can not have financial peace of mind through this and that I had been misled in being told that it was 60%. I would've gotten an independant policy months ago. Okay, I think I'm done ranting for now. Sorry to bore everyone but all this is so new to me..I never even thought about disability insurance or anything before this. I just assumed that the insurance the company provided was adequate. It seems every day I'm learning something new! How can anyone afford to be sick?? Debi

Rocco, What great news! Congratulations!! Debi

Thanks again all! Valium is sounding damn good about now Gail! And Dave, thanks for the encouragement! Rocco, you made me laugh about leaving the skid marks to get cigarettes..am glad that I am not the only one!! Good luck with your CT scan!! I am feeling better now..I'm in the "purposeful" stage..just getting things taken care of at work and plodding forward. And instead of counting the days till I have the surgery, I am now counting to the days after the surgery. As in..2 weeks from now I'll be 2 days OUT of surgery..that sounds so much better! Debi

Thanks to all for replying, I can't really put into words how helpful this board is..but I guess you all know that. Gina and Eileen..I appreciate you sharing your surgery stories ..it helps to know what to expect and I wish you both tons of luck. I know that the fleet of trucks analogy will help me, believe it or not lol. Like I've said before its so much easier to get through something when you know others have gone before. I'm trying not to think that the surgery is 2 weeks away, but I seem to be living with an undercurrent of panic and fear. Its just part of me now and doesn't really go away. I almost feel bad posting that, because I know so many of you have gone through so much more at this point; I feel as if I don't have the right to complain. I hope that no one takes offense at my "whining" but I don't know where else to go right now except here. I don't want to be away from my son for a week, I don't want anyone to cut me open, I dont want to have to go through a "recovery" period. I just want my life back to before I had that dang xray. And what is with the smoking deal? Why could I never stop and to this DAY am having trouble? Okay, I think I'm done whining now. I'm just so angry at my body and at myself. I've always considered myself a strong, independant person..but right now I'm not. Emotionally, I feel about 5 years old. I'm a manager at my job, and I work with aobut 250 people and every day someone will ask me when I'm having surgery and I smile and tell them. Meanwhile, inside, I'm basically falling apart here...it is taking so much effort to keep it together. I'm just scared, I guess, but even though I've known something was going to happen for months, I never really dealt with it because my philosophy is that worrying about something does nothing...so there's no sense in worrying. However, this has hit me like a ton of bricks the last couple of days. I'm hoping its a stage, and I will somehow find something steady to hang onto...I really don't like myself as a crybaby, I prefer to be a pillar of strength! :0) Sorry for rambling!! Debi

Ronna, Go Ronna, Go Ronna!! I may be a novice, but I know good news when I hear it!! Congratulations!! Debi :0)

Shannon & Mike, Wow..as they say, there are no coincidences!! I just ventured off the newbie board this morning and was reading your posts on CTCA. I'm telling you, it was like I was starving..I was just absorbing all you had to say!! I was going to post to you but then thought that you were so busy, I didn't want to bother you. I am so glad that you answered my post! I will be coming up for pre-op on June 12th and then checking in on the 15th for my June 16th surgery. I'm supposed to come up this Tuesday for a breathing test at another facility in Tulsa but may try to change that appt to coincide with the pre-op date. My car isn't really old, but it is at that stage where I try not to push it if I don't have to! I would love to meet you and am so thankful for your posts. I only knew what I have read about CTCA and how I felt from my limited contact with them. It felt good but I wondered whether it was as good as it seemed. I did try to go straight there, a patient advocate at CTCA fought with my insurance company to have me go there, but my insurance company was a bit difficult. CTCA ended up referring me to their Pulmonary Specialist's private practice so that I could get in the "back door" which is how it eventually played out! My surgeon operates at several hospitals in Tulsa, CTCA being one of them. Guess which one I picked! :0) Thank you again for responding..this is so great..and feel free to email me! Good luck to both of you, I am thinking of you! Debi

Thank you for replying. Dave, it IS Cancer Center Treatment of America and that is so amazing to me..that someone from here is in there right now. I haven't even been to the hospital there yet...I will be going for pre-op on 6/12... but it feels right to me. I hope I have made the right choice with this...I just feel that I can't afford to wait any longer. I don't know if thats right or wrong but I do trust this surgeon and pulmonary specialist..not only were they both caring and compassionate but their office staff was also. At no time at all, in either of their offices, did I feel rushed...in fact both of them took forever with me and kept asking if I had any more questions. Rocco, thanks for the "blow by blow" of the surgery...it helps to know what to expect. My surgeon had told me pretty much the same thing about the fatality rate..in fact he kind of just gestured...like, dont even think about it. He said that he has lost 5 patients in 30 years during the surgery. Of course with my gloom and doom, I'm thinking "Okay, he's about due". lol My son is the one part of this whole situation that terrifies me when I think about it. If it wasn't for him..well, this would be terrible, but it wouldnt be SO terrible. My daughter is grown and has a family, and I know if something happened to me it would be terrible for her..but she has her family and husband that would help get her through. But how could a 4 year old even begin to understand? I'm glad that you can relate. Well, thanks all to listen to the rambling again. I feel good being able to talk about this...people at work know since I had to explain my impending absence but I'm not the type of person (believe it or not) to talk about my fears or troubles. When they ask how I am I just tell them I'm good.. I just have to take care of this. This is the first time that I'm actually talking about how I really feel... please excuse the massive quantity of words! Its great to have a forum to say how I really feel and to have people understand. - Debi

Thanks all for your responses..I feel better already. Confused, but better! lol I am in Oklahoma, having moved here 3 years ago. I live in a small town that doesn't have many medical choices. The first specialist that I had gone to is in Oklahoma City, my doctor had referred me to him. He is the one that wanted to do a bronchoscopy, but told me that thre was a good chance he could poke my lung or start me bleeding, that I should pack an overnight bag. He also shook like Katherine Hepburn. Since I didn't exactly fall off the turnip truck, I decided that he may not have been the best person to listen to. Besides all that, he said that I would most definitely be needing to go to a surgeon right after that. Its terrible in some ways being in a new state and not knowing where to go (I lived in NY my whole life and knew the "good and bad" medical care places), but a place in Tulsa kept coming up online and in a few conversations I had with coworkers. So I called them and they referred me to the Pulmonary Specialist I went to see up in Tulsa. Its almost a 4 hour drive but this IS my life afterall, I would drive 12 hours to feel comfortable. I felt comfortable with him..the 1st thing he told me is that the bronchoscopy wouldnt work because of where the nodule is in my lung. I felt that he wasn't trying to pad his pockets at my expense. He referred me to a thorasic surgeon who also made me feel comfortable. The surgeon moved here from Phoenix about 6 years ago and is still active on a board at a Phoenix hospital, etc; he's been doing lung and heart surgery for 30 years. The bottom line, that both of them told me, is that I have a nodule in my lung, its growing, it needs to come out. The surgeon also said that because the nodule is deep in my lung, and still rather small, a biopsy would not work. I tend to agree with the idea of getting it out..I have known something was wrong with my first xray the end of January, and it is now almost June. I'm not sure what I would be waiting for at this point by not getting it out! Anyway, I had my choice of hospitals in Tulsa and one of them was THe Cancer Treatment Center, which is who helped me find a decent specialist to begin with. So I chose them. Coincidently, the Pulmonary Specialist is a Medical Director at the center. I think that I am making the right choice...I wish that it was not a choice that I had to make but I'm a realist, and it is...so therefore I plod ahead! :0) Again, I appreciate all your posts and will continue to appreciate them. I feel better about the aftermath of surgery already. And Gail and Ginny, yes I am going to spoil myself before. I actually have some extra money coming next week so I plan to take a road trip to civilization and go on a shopping spree. And what I don't spend, I will save for my recovery period...and Ebay! I also am planning to take off from work a week prior to surgery...just to clean the house and stock the fridge, etc. I'm going to try to find a cleaning lady for a couple weeks after the surgery..this way I will not be tempted to overdo. There is nothing worse than laying around staring at dirt!!! My son's father will take care of him while I'm in the hospital and I have a 25 year old daughter who will help as best as she can (she's got 3 kids and a husband). Thanks again, and sorry for the length of this post. I am still terrified about the surgery (Im one of those people that expects the worst..everything from the dr, nurse, anesthesiologist, etc etc making a mistake in surgery to a tornado ripping thru Tulsa at the exact hour I'm in surgery, etc) but you all have made me feel better. I'm glad you are all out there! Debi

I'm 46 years old and back in February my doctor found a small nodule in my right lung on an xray. Since then I have had 2 Cat Scans and a Pet Scan. The Pet Scan showed no malignancy. That was good news, but it also could have meant that the nodule was too small to really show. The 2nd Cat Scan I had done in April, to see if the nodule grew. It had, about 2 millimeters, so I was referred to a Pulmonary Specialist. He turned out to be a bit of a jerk, so I found another one and liked him. He sent me to a surgeon who has scheduled me for surgery on June 16th. The Specialist told me that there is a 50/50 chance that its lung cancer..if it is benign they will just take out the wedge, if cancerous will take out the lobe of my right lung. I've been living with this for several months now so have had time to "adapt" (as much you can) to this whole ordeal. I guess the scariest time was waiting for the results of the 1st Cat Scan, to see just how big the nodule was and whether there were more. Im numb now..I am dreading the surgery, I have never had major surgery in my life. I also have a 4 year old at home, who is constantly on my mind. I guess my biggest question would be how bad is my recovery going to be after the surgery? I'm sure everyone recovers differently, but I am dreading this so badly and would appreciate any input on the surgery and its aftermath. And don't worry...nothing could be as bad as I'm imagining! :0) I try not to think about 2 weeks from now, but the closer it gets, the more it tends to slip into my mind and take up residence there. If anyone can say anything to put my mind at ease, I would appreciate it..honestly, I'm terrified. Thank you all!!! Debi