Elaine

I really love the "I have lung cancer but it doesnt have me'" As I read it, I kept picturing so many of you all pulling on your t-shirts. A beauutiful sight! Thanks again Lily for a wondeful moment. Elaine

Thank you for responding to the question posed to you. I and many others respect and appreciate your and Dean's honesty and insight. There's a poem that most of us probably had to read in school called "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost. It's a poem I hadn't thought about in years, until now of course and its meaning is so much deeper than I could ever have imagined as a young girl feeling kind of put out to read a poem I didn't really want to read--ha! I am going to look for it now and post it to the forum. I know the two of you draw strength from each other. And you will always have the strength of Dean with you and you with him. I feel assured of that. You are special people, all of us are. You and Dean came into my life and the life of others just when I and they needed you--so isn't that proof of miracles!!! Again thank you and just keep being wrapped in the love of Dean. Elaine

Joe-- Sorry to hear the effects are ongoing, but so happy to hear that you are fighting them by remaining active and postive. The study you cite is one of the main reasons I chose no chemo--though I would have IF chemo could have ever made me a candidate for surgery. I was told I would never be able to surgically remove the tumor due to its location. I do think however that some of those 80 per cent might actually do chemo IF they were actually faced with that decision and not just posed the question hypothetically. However, theirr response is kind of telling. Of course none of us know the "right answer" we just must do what we believe is best, which is what you have done. And you are doing so much besides just established medicine, and your heart and is good and I beleive you are heading in the right direction. I think of you and your family, as I do all of us. Thanks for letting us know how you are. Elaine

Kelly, Sorry I missed this post earlier. I don't know what to tell you except to keep asking asking and if asking isn't working then you must demand. I wish I knew more to tell you and had words that would comfort you. I just don't. But please know that you are in my thoughts and if there is anything any of us can do jsut keep posting. Elaine

Thank you for sharing your joy with all of us. You are so right about the normal times--cherish them, I am learning to do just that. What lessons we all are learning... Give your mom a hug from all of us. Elaine

One thing besides the love I feel on this board is that so often someone's response to someone else is JUST what I needed to hear. I keep telling myself I am down too much, but when I look back over the last 5 weeks, I realize I am in much better shape than I was. I am stronger, and need to give myself some credit for that (and this board). So anyway, guest. Fay is right, you are still so very new to all of this and if really knocks one for a loop. So I agree, look at your successes. you may feel like you are only being lead around. But darn, it's your legs doing the walking. My best to you. Elaine

Thanks for the update. I sense you are kind of apologizing in a round about way for being down last week. I think you are human and in a kind of a bummer situation (and I understate) as most of us here are--patient and caregiver and family memebers--but I think we all appreciate candor and it helps us all to know that we don't have to be strong and stoic every day. So allow us to help you, like you have helped so many, Dean. And I hope you are out and about today, and don't get to read this until wayyyyy late. Don't "forge"' to talk about pain management. I finally got pushy, like so many of you urged me to do and I am starting to see some results. Thank goodness for you all. Elaine

Lily, I just know you will get the job. Anyone who meets you must realize how special and giving you are. I personally want to thank you for being here each and every day. I look forward to reading your thoughts and your "just for laughs." Thank you, Thank-you, thank you.

All I can say is "Wow" --a real eyeopener. Thanks Elaine

Cheryl You've gotten a lot of good advice to your post. I finally realized that I, too, had bought into the stereotpe that I alone had "caused " my disease. That's what "they" want you to believe because it makes "them" feel better (superior and untouchable) and it gives the medicail profession a convenient rationalization for why more is not being done to tackle this disease. But on a softer note, I imagine it gives some people a way to separate themselves from something that they fear, and all humans have a tendency to want to do that, I guess. I am glad you listened closely to what Fay was saying. She tells it like it is, and she's been on this road a long time and we all need cherish the wisdom she has accumulated. I am learning to give myself a break, and it's not easy. But coming here has helped me so much. Elaine

Praying for youTBone. And could I borrow just one little sister--pretty please. No, I know you need and want and love them all. Glad you are feeling better today. Make the best of it, but I know darn well you will. Elaine

I'm a little younger than you and we have the same dx. If you want to talk, pls just pm me and we I can call you or we can write. I am newly dxed also. Also in a daze and would like to help if I can, at least by listening and being there for you. Elaine

Betty An endless supply--cool!!!! elaine

You have truly blessed us all. I can't tell you how many smiles and laughs I have had because of you. Not just from things you have written, but because I know that if you saw me all sad and mopey you would think less of me. THAt's how much you mean to me and to others I am sure. Elaine

Oh Ginny, I can't imagine what your sister has gone through. I hope and pray she hears some good news next week. I know your whole family must be reeling right now, too. Tell your sister, she is in our prayers and in our thoughts. Wish there was more I could do or say. Elaine

I for one think that what you fear may be complacency is actually a blessing--you are looking forward and that's a great and wonderful place to look!!! So happy for you. Elaine

Oh honey, I am praying for you all and for wisdom for the Drs and medical profession to know what to do. I wish I had answers for you and for everyone. But all I can do is keep you in my thoughts and prayers. It seems so little, I know. But there is power in numbers and there are lots of us on this list and then add to that our families and there are thousands of us praying for you all. Elaine

I love to hear that prayers have been answered. Will be thinking and praying for your mom and your familyl. Elaine

Angie, I say take Dean's advice. I also think that there can be pnemonia (sp) without fever. Not sure though. Seems the same happened to me. I felt pretty good until I found out I had lung cancer. It seems the symptoms really aroused then. Not sure why. Keeping you and yours in my thoughts and prayers. Elaine

I have thought so much about the thread Mo started on being "alone" while she fought this battle called LC for days now. My heart breaks each time I read it. Lots of tears. Beautiful love stories. Strong people fighting and doing our best to make it through days we never ever asked for nor deserve. But that is life, as someone else on here said. Just wish it wasn't so. I do think that watching and even the thought of having to be aware that one's loved ones are being put through so much has got to be the hardest thing I have ever faced--especially knowing my own actions had something to do with it. I know, I know, that guilt is not serving me nor does it serve anyone well, but that's the truth of the matter for me. And I also know that most all diseases are in some way or another lifestyle related as well as genetic--same as lc and AIDS. However, our pc society, the same "culture" if you will, that "sold" most of us cigerettes when we were just children, has now turned its back on us who they call "weak" and have done what it has always done--blamed the "victim"--not just smokers--but think back--"welfare moms", AIDS sufferers, poor people--you name it. The self-proclaimed "elite" has always been holier than thou. And I would be lying to myself, if I even tried to suggest that I have not in some way or another, fallen into the guilt trip that permeates the messages in our culture. I must take responsiblity for my actions, but at the same time I know that like most things, responsibility needs to be and should be a shared thing. In the 1980s, people could smoke in hospital rooms--I know, I did it. In the 1970s you could smoke in college classrooms--I know, I did it. In the 1960s, you could buy cigerettes out of vending machines that were out of sight of adults, for a quarter--I know, I did it. Southern politicians (sorry southerners) have kept the tobacco industry in big dollars, regardless of the so-called "luxury" taxes. One thing they have done is created markets in "developing countries" where cigerettes are being again shipped and marketed to children. And when we complain about our health care system, we also ought to think about the health care system of countries, that in a few years, will also have an epidemic of young lc survivors/sufferers. And for those, young and old, who have lc and who never smoked or who quit smoking years before dx, you, too, now are suffering from the same "mentality" that keeps the stigma on this disease. My Dr. said that "never smokers" get lc because they grew up in homes of smokers or married smokers--I know from this board that that is not the case. Too many people are doing their darned awful best to put a 'smokers only' blanket on this problem. I guess it just simplifies things for them. I guess it makes it easier to turn one's back and rationalize the sorry state of the medical research and lack of compassion in our society for those groups who "we" feel "we" are somehow immune from. When I walk into my current Drs. office, I feel like I have the plague. I know I need find a new Dr., but the feeling he and some of the others showed me from the first, I feel will haunt me throughout my struggle. Maybe I am too sensitve, I don't know. But what was said to me and the way it was said, was shameful. I am a person. And like one of my new heroes, ZPacific said, "love me for my strenghts and my weaknesses." Or if not love me, then have the decency to accept that as humans none of us are perfect. I heard a curious thing the other day on Catholic radio. A priest was saying one of the most frightening things about our present day society is that he has parishoners who have come to him and said, "I don't go to confession because I can't think of anything I have done wrong." Not just a few people, but a lot he said. That shocked me, being a guilt stricken Lutheran from the midwest--lol. But , I murdered no one. I obeyed most laws (OK I have been known to speed), I raised my children to be caring and thoughtful people. I did the best I could, most of the time. And never intentinally hurt anyone. And treated all people with respect. But I am now not only sick, but amoung the sick who many feel deserve what they got. Over and over on this board, I have read stores of people who went undiagnosed--not for the lack of trying to find out what was wrong, but from simple tests not being done or symptoms being "brushed off"--. Over and over, I have read of people who went undiagnosed because their Doctors didnt seem to know that not all people with LC have cough as the presenting symptom. Even I assumed that since my cough went away, I didn't have LC. But I had other symptoms, symptoms you really have to search long and hard on the Internet to find that they are symptoms of LC. Sometimes I have even wondered if there isn't some "conspiracy" that makes it more cost effective to find as many of us as late in the disease process as possible. Maybe that sounds cynical, but it does kind of fit the cost effective nature of medicine these days. We need to start living long enough to fight not only the disease but the stigma and the 'system" as well. It takes so much to fight the disease and the other problems (financial, emotional, personal) , that many of us can't rally to fight outside of the personal level. I thank those of you who are doing that and have been given the skills and the relatively good health to do it. And many of you caregivers, who do it too--even while giving care, and then afterwards when your loved one has succombed. I think that some reasons AIDS and Breast Cancer victims have been so successful at organizing and garnering support, is because many of those afflicted are young and survive a longer period of time with their disease. Young people seem to organize around political causes easier than those of us who are older or who have more "responsibilities"--or maybe they have more energy. I don't know. I just know that I never wanted to be here, in this position, and now that I am , I hope to do what I can to make sure that as few people as possible walk the roads we on this board currently walk --lc patient or family member. While LC will exist forever, it doesn't have to exist the way it exists now. It CAN be found earlier, it CAN be cured much more often than it now is IF found earlie,r and new treatments CAN be found with adequate funding and public interest,too. The reasons some people get LC and some do not, CAN be studied --lots and lots CAN be done. But WE are the people who must see it gets done. That seems clear to me now. I had no idea until I put these "shoes" on a few weeks ago, what the road looked like, and my it's kind of muddy and yucky, but like so many of you have said, "all things are possible." But it will take lots of action. Many of you are doing things now, and what more can we do and should we be doing?

Your mother is beautiful and pls know she lives on and on in your memories and in the memories of your children and theirs--keep the stories and pictures alive.

I admit to being a smoker, and I don't know what if anything radon had to do with my dx, I do know this. A home I lived in for 7 years at about the same time or just before my cancer likely started forming, was tested for radon. The people we sold it to had it tested AFTER they bought it. They then sent a letter to the editor of the local paper waring people about possible radon in homes in the area and how to get the radon out of the homes. A friend of mine sent me the letter, which is how I found out about the radon there. We all know that smoking alone does not cause LC--or as Dave G and others have said, all smokers would get it.

Carleen, You and Keith have truly been blessed and have blessed us all by sharing your love and insight with us on this board. May the gifts you give come back to the both of your tenfold. Elaine

My prayers and thoughts are sent for all your family during this difficult time. I know how hard it was on me when my Dad was fighting to stay alert. Hope you find the answer. Let us know how things are Elaine

That was fun--thanks. It took me twice but I beat ya lol Elaine