newbe trying to function alone

soccerfreaks said:

welcome!
Kathryn, like the others, I hope that you learn to find your way around in this 'joint'. It is really rather easy once you get the hang of it.

As you must have discovered already from the responses of others above, while this is a crummy club to be a part of due to the 'requirements', the members are among the kindest, gentlest, and most helpful I have ever known. I wish you great luck in finding the answers you seek.

In the meantime, I may be able to answer one or two, myself. I am both a Head/Neck Cancer and Lung Cancer survivor. As far as I know, there is no blood test for 'proving' the existence of lung cancer. As far as I know, the only way to absolutely confirm lung cancer is via a biopsy. Even CT and PET scans can be faulty in this regard and I am speaking with first hand knowledge when I make that statement.

The scans show changes in the lungs that predict cancer or alert doctors to its possibility, but, truly, the only way to be sure that I am aware of is via biopsy. I am not sufficiently expert to explain why your 'reports' show different results except to surmise that perhaps it is indeed cancer and that it is growing. But that is only a supposition on my part. Your doctors should be telling you what you need to know in that regard.


My advice would be to have a friend go with you to your appointments, and that this person take notes, along with a list of questions you may have, and that you update this following each appointment. If you do not have a friend available to go with you, seek out a local cancer-related group that offers transportation and a 'friend' to go with you. In any event, write down all of your questions, get them all answered to your satisfaction, and then write down any new questions between appointments. This is the BEST way to keep track of what is going on, whether you are seven or 70: it is not age-related. Under stress of this sort, we ALL tend to forget.

Best wishes and good luck getting around in here.

Take care,

Joe

hopeful and optimistic said:

Hi
All of us here are brothers and sisters to these various cancer diseases, many of us belong to local support groups where is is community. ...Additionally you may wish to attend a religious service where there is an uplifting sermon.....I find it a good idea to as they say here, "celebrate life", volunteer, play a musical instrument, blow bubbles.

Ira

To give you all hope look up my history.  Dxed clon cancer when 77.  Bumpy first year,but became NED.  Soon to be 88 and still NED.  I"m living proof that cancer can be beat. Good luck to you all!!!

I had stage 4 throat cancer and underwent treatment at the University of Chicago. Great place. I live in northwest Indiana and they were tearing the tollway up at the time I had to drive or be driven up there. Been cancer free for a little over a year and figure I have 3 or 4 years left and i'm trying to enjoy myself with the time I have left. Chemo made me very depressed and I felt like I was living in Hell. A month or 2 after I was done with chemo and 45 rounds of radiation I felt reborn again. Hang in there and you will make it, there's light at the end of the tunnel.

   Greg

Hello there!

Know that you are not alone here. I am new here too, and find navigation to be tricky. I empathize with your feelings of being lost and alone. You have reached out, and with responses, the aloneness will dissipate. Volunteering also alleviates aloneness. What I hold onto is hope.

I learned during the more than three decades since my original diagnosis of Hodgkin’s Disease (HD) 2A, that I continue to experience the late effects of the Radiation Therapy. I have had rounds of breast cancer and skin cancers. Radiation Fibrosis (RF) is a general term for the muscle atrophy and head drop that I experience, although RF covers a myriad of conditions.

I would be happy to communicate with you directly, this is if I successfully posted this reply and can retrieve mail. ;)

Take care,

Bellad