More excitement than you or I were ready for

Well, I thought this blog would be more like a hobby, but I am beginning to think it may be more like therapy. So if you ever wondered what other people may say to a counselor I guess you should keep reading...

I guess a good way to start this post is by telling you what happened. On Tuesday of this week I was told a malignant tumor is alive and growing inside of my right lung- by definition it is cancer then. Wow. What. Really? I have never smoked except for maybe 3 or 4 cigarettes during my rebellious adolescent period. What about the people that smoke a pack a day or week or even in a lifetime? What do I say to people? What do people say to me? Fuck. That's how I feel.

But I should feel lucky. I say this because the only reason this tumor was discovered is because I went to the hospital with terrible back pain exactly a month ago today. I was in so much pain it hurt to breath, move, talk, etc. (As a side note, it was also my roommate's birthday). So after they gave me every drug they could possibly try and my back still hurt they ending up running a blood test and doing a CT scan. That's when they discovered the tumor. At 1am the ER doc came in my room and handed me a 20-page pamphlet on the cancer center in the city. It's one of the best in the US. I looked at my roommate and we just cried.

So if you are asking yourself why am I so surprised on in shock when I found this out a month ago? Well after being admitted into the hospital the pulmonologist (Dr. R) decided he had never seen a case like this before and there was NO WAY it could be lung cancer. So after I was released from the hospital I went to see another doctor in a different state (Dr. A), and after comparing my CT scans to a lung x-ray taken 3 months earlier he said he was 99% confident this was not lung cancer and there was no need to worry. He recommended I get another CT scan in 3 months to track its progress. So by this point I was feeling pretty good.

A week after I met with Dr. A he called me. He told me he present my case to a board of tumor doctors who realized they were looking at my x-ray in the wrong format and in fact it did show the tumor that my most recent CT scan showed. Whoops. He recommended I get to a new doctor immediately and have a biopsy. He helped me find a doctor close to where I am now and she ordered a PET scan because it was less invasive than a biopsy and if it came back negative then there would be no reason for it to be biopsied. (If you are not familiar with a PET scan, basically it requires you to fast for 6 hours and not consume carbs for 12 hours. Then you are injected with glucose and radiation. The cells in your body will start to metabolize the glucose and as they do that the radiation will remain in the cell and will show up on the scan. You have to sit in a dim room for about 40 minutes without moving in order to prevent cells from needing the energy. Consequently, your bladder, heart, brain and any tumor that is alive and growing will be the only things metabolizing the glucose because you do not have to be active for that to happen.)

So the results from the PET scan came back positive. Shit. Now I have a biopsy on Tuesday to confirm and then more than likely surgery. Awesome.  It's so frustrating because I just don't know how to feel. I know I'll make it through this and I refuse to let this impact my life any more than it has to. But I am not finding a lot of comfort in that. I also don't really want to talk to anyone about it because there isn't a lot they can say. So hopefully writing a blog about it and hoping someone reads it will be my saving grace. Maybe there is someone else out there going through this and they will find comfort they are not alone.