Introduction

[Robert Macaulay]

Hi Irwin

The new norm of cancer patient is a new life of appointments and if you stay healthy and walk those dogs in your new regime everyday during your treatment .It works for me so far.

[Rower Michelle]

There ya go!  Celebrate those no symptoms days. Go out and do something fun today- just because you can. 

Once your treatment gets underway, there’s a lot of resources available to us- I’m mastering self care with massage, acupuncture, Tai Chi,  & Yoga.  Yesterday my doubles partners dragged me out to the lake for a practice row. Wasn’t pretty but hey gotta start somewhere.  

Ride the good day and stay off the internet! 

Michelle

[Irwin1]

Got my copy of Anti Cancer Living. Just having something to read and do has taken some of the helplessness away.

  I am also using coping skills that I have used during my life. While I am symptom free I am keeping my mind positive and content with the health I have now. I believe but don't have any proof that living and thinking like this releases healing mechanisms even unknown of now similar how the brain releases endorphins during exercising. 

  I just have this strong feeling that being at peace and living in the now is healing my body. 

   But I still have no proof of it being a reality

[Rower Michelle]

When your ready- you can check out the self healing meditation CDs from Candace Pert and Bellaruth Naperstack.  I find them helpful visualization tools for my mind to heal the body.  

I had to buy a good old fashion CD player/portable boom box however it’s proved to be a solid investment.  

Anti Cancer Living covers a lot of the mind body medicine.  

Hope you had a better day today! Remember the sun always shines after the rainstorm. 

Michelle

[LouT]

Irwin,

You've already gotten some great advice, hope and input from the rest of my lung family here and I wanted to just add my experience to what you've received so far.  When I was first aware that this was going to be lung cancer (although the final diagnosis would come in the operating room) I immediately went to a very dark place and only thought of my death.  I had seen my mother die of lung cancer and was with her on her last day so I already knew what I was in for.  After all, not much could have changed in the past 35 years, right?

Well, of course a lot has changed.  I took the advice of others here and kept away from Google and even WebMD (my normally trusted source), but I listened to my Pulmonologist and the Thoracic Surgeon.  They kept talking to me about the process, prognosis and none of what they said agreed with the picture I had painted in my own head.  So, I was stuck between hope and total desperation.  Then I got a private message from a member sharing his fear and how nothing turned out the way he imagined it would be (he, like me, had a lobectomy).  I must have read that message 10 times and went back to it a few more the next day.  After that I decided to listen to my doctors (and my family here) and believe that the plan they laid out for me was going to have a good outcome and, to my own surprise, it happened just that way.

Yes, they biopsied me on the operating table and it was lung cancer; yes I lost a part of my lung; yes there is always a chance of recurrence, but I don't read Google or any other stats.  I go by what my doctors tell me and by the stories that I've seen shared here that were inspiring and hopeful in circumstances much more dire than mine.

"Diagnosis time" stinks...you wait and hope and fear and wait some more.  But you've been given time, hours, days despite the fear you need to fill that time with loved ones, funny shows (for me it was Seinfeld and the old Honeymooners series) and connect (here and in your own neighborhood).  Fight despair with the same energy you'll learn to fight this disease.  You may not always feel it, but you have this strength in you.  You have so many people (including many here now) praying for you that you need to let those prayers lift your spirit.  I also love Michelle's mantra...find the one that means something and does it for you.  In my case there were too many carnal verbs in mine to share it here.

Cancer stinks and lung cancer stinks even more, but you have so many people (your medical team, family, friends, prayer partners and now us) on your side so you are not alone.

Lou

[Irwin1]

I haven't received a definitive diagnosis yet. I just have the CT scan that shows a mass > 4 cm alongside of a positive PET scan with cells lighting up in the mass along with a lymphnode. I don't know the rules invoking God so I won't name him. 

    The truth is that I have been prepared for this in the past three years. I have had neurological problems and bad diagnoses. I have had neurologists give serious disease to my face. I have had a lot of schooling in diagnosing. But I was blind when it came to neurology I was blind. Now I have a gift in the form of a sense of humor. I went to the first neurologist and I could tell that he was trying to install fear in me. Just by observing me for15 mins he looked at me and said ' I have a gut feeling that you have Parkinson's Disease. So I looked at him and said ' Thank God I thought it was something serious 😂

   Then after schooling myself from Doctor Google I saw clearly that I didn't have it. I even went to a.P D forum and they said that it didn't sound like I had it. So I went to a second neurologist and in less than 2 minutes he said that I didn't have PD. But this neurologist gave me 2 diagnoses which I studied and found out that those diagnoses were ruled out because they were autoimmune diseases and prior lab tests showed no autoimmune diseases. So I confronted him with that..And at the end he was honest with me telling me that he didn't know what I had..He and my PCP told me to go to Cleaveland Clinic. But my insurance was very weak with them. They wanted $10k just to talk to them and there was no way I was able to afford it so I decided to just treat the symptoms which is what would have happened even if I was diagnosed at that point.

    Slowly but surely I got better. So the point is that I have had experience with doctors doctors giving me bad diagnosis. The only thing is LC is about 50 times more scarier. And there is no Dr Google to help me out. Dr Google makes things worse.

   I also developed an addiction to Xanax after 35 years and I knew that I had to quit since the whole family of benzodiazipes are now considered bad medications. So I was deeply rooted in an online forum and was on my way cutting down..So my point is that I am familiar with the encouragement and the need to receive support from others. I also am aware of the bonding and love that takes place in forums. I know how to love and also to receive love. The gift that God gave me is the ability is how to encourage. 

    So depending on my definitive diagnosis as soon as I settle down I am going to be participating.

   I also know that with a bad diagnosis my life is forever changed. 

  I think that I mentioned the loss of my 13 year old Golden retriever when I returned from the hospital. When I recovered from the pneumonia at home and got on my Archie Bunker recliner to feel some sort of normalcy it didn't happen. I had my lung mass and Gabriella was gone.

  So there is a spiritual song that I liked to listen to because I knew some day that I would need it..And the lyrics go like this.

   Yesterday is a closing door. You don't live there anymore. Say goodbye to where you've been. And tell your heart to beat again.

     I think that says it all

                  Irwin