Bud Baker

Big congrats to Tom!

Congrats on 5 years, Jackie!

Welcome, Mary. I am another 5 year survivor of stage 2 squamous cell NSCLC, so hang in there! Sorry to read that yours got into your ribs. From everything I've seen, that always makes for some serious long term pain. How are you doing?

Congrats, Janet!

I think the link between food and cancer is way underestimated. One of the things I've concentrated on, to try and help my odds of staying cancer free, is improving my diet.

Thanks, y'all. It was a crazy week. I felt fine last weekend and even did a 76 mile bike ride on Saturday. But in the middle of the night, Sunday night, I got a fever with chills, body aches, and the whole bit. My fever broke by Monday morning and I went to work. But it was back by early Monday evening. This pattern just kept coming back, a fever in the night but ok during the day. Wednesday evening was the fourth day in a row, so I took the time to go to the Dallas VA hospital ER. My symptoms so closely matched that of TB patients, and the chest x-ray, which showed something in what remains of my left lung, couldn't tell if it was TB or pneumonia, so they admitted me to the hospital. They did a TB test, then a chest CT scan. It takes 2-3 days to get a result from a TB test, but the CT scan showed pretty conclusively that it was pneumonia and not TB (there was no cancer, either). It seemed very strange to end up with a pneumonia diagnosis when I didn't even have a cold or anything else wrong beforehand. They call that "community acquired pneumonia", when otherwise healthy people get pneumonia. It may be that my surgery damaged left lung will always be prone to this kind of stuff. I'm back home with antibiotics now.

Congrats, Diane! Great news!

I think the pulmonary rehab speaker should take an audience volunteer through a demonstration of a pulmonary rehab visit. I don't think most of us know what goes on with pulmonary rehab. I'd be interested in observing.

Congrats, Lysa, and welcome. I remember the party we had on my one year survival anniversary. It remains the largest gathering we've ever had at our house.

Janet, so sorry to read about how rough things are going for you. Going through a stretch of really bad quality of life is one thing if there is clearly light at the end of the tunnel. It's quite different if it's not certain that all the treatments causing the bad quality of life are really going to help. When I had cisplatin as an adjuvant after my surgery, it became obvious to me that 4 rounds was going to cause long term problems for me, so I quit after 3 rounds, in spite of my doctors' protests that 4 rounds would give me a better chance at long term survival. That doesn't begin to compare with what you are going through, but I think it shows which way I lean on the scale of quality of life. I say justifying things to yourself has to be first and foremost. Then worry about everyone else. Best wishes, I hope things get better.

Congrats on 8 years, Kasey!

Congrats, Bruce!

Welcome, Sandy! My story is similar, not that large a tumor, but a cancerous lymph node made it stage 2, so I had chemo after surgery. I've been cancer free for over four and a half years now, so my dark cloud is getting smaller. Here's wishing you many cancer free years, too!

Big congrats on 5 years!

Congrats, Nonni! Glad you're still doing great!