Coming to terms with diagnosis

ARobben said:

I can relate
Sistersue, I can relate!

I was diagnosed with Stage IV Non-small-cell Adenocarcinoma in Dec 08. I just finished my first wave (six rounds) of chemo yesterday. I'm doing very similar treatment: cisplatin/alimta/avastin. Cisplatin is just a little more heavy duty than carbo, but the doctors said that since I'm young, I could probably handle it. So far, it's given me a little fatigue and such, but nothing that bad, and I feel very lucky for that.

My diagnosis came as quite a surprise to me as well. The short version is that I began developing shortness of breath. At first, just being a little more winded than usual after a basketball game or a run, but it got to the point where I couldn't walk up a flight of stairs without being completely winded. I thought it may have just been a bad bought of bronchitis or something, but decided it was high time I headed to the doctor. And they kinda looked at me and said "Are you sure you don't have ashtma?" and I was like "yeah, I'm pretty sure." So they recommended I go to the ER. After taking the train and walking a few blocks to the ER, I was quite out of breath, so this got me through the ER waiting room pretty quick (they take shortness of breath pretty seriously). They immediately did an EKG and a CT scan and then put me in a room to wait for the results. Due to a recent mission trip I had taken to Africa, they were set on a diagnosis of tuberculosis. They said "you have a mass in your lung that we think is TB. It could possibly be cancer, but because of you age (26) and history (non-smoker, active, healthy, etc) we doubt it." However, in the back of my mind, I knew it wasn't TB.

Over the next several days, I had a few TB tests and things which all, none to my surprise, came back negative. They did a biopsy and sure enough...cancer. When they told me, I think they were a little shocked at my response. I was more or less "Okay...so what do we do now?" I wasn't really bummed, shocked, or whatever. I was just...what do we do from here?

I think the best thing to do is to take it one step at a time. Don't jump to conclusions, etc. I was told my cancer was "incurable and inoperable." This could sound like a death sentence, but I just took it in stride...one step at a time. Now after my first wave of chemo, I'll be having another consultation with the surgeons in a few weeks to see if surgery may be an option at this point.

The point is, you can never give up hope!

Anyway, as far as handling the diagnosis, Soccerfreaks gave a lot of good advice. Keep up as much of your normal activity as you can. Exercise and eat healthy...you'll feel better. The best thing I can add is to get an advocate...a close friend, a significant other, whoever. Someone else to be in the fight with you, who will go to appointments with you whenever possible, who will educate themselves as well and can sometimes help make phone calls and ask questions you may not always feel like doing.

And finally, welcome to the boards! We're all here to help!

soccerfreaks said:

Welcome!
Glad that you found this place, sistersue. Among the boards, the chatroom, the mail, and the various services provided by ACS, this site can do a lot for you in more ways than one. Some of us consider it a very cheap form of therapy .

I am not a stage 4 survivor of lung cancer, but a survivor of stage 3 head/neck cancer and, later, a lobectomy of my lower right lung lobe. They are still not sure if that was metastasis from the head/neck cancer or a new cancer, but, oddly, we are hoping it was a new cancer.

Regardless, I am now NED (No Evidence of Disease). What I learned during my bout with the lung stuff, and some have disputed this, but my docs were pretty darned good, is that NSCLC is less aggressive than small cell. That is a plus for you, I think, although your brand is more aggressive than the squamous cell that I had, from what I read here.

Coping with the diagnosis is a very difficult thing, sistersue. To my mind, it is like being told you are going to die, even when that is not necessarily true, simply because we do not spend our lives studying cancer and, thus, it sounds like a death sentence when we hear it.

I am fairly confident that most of the people in this board and on this site and most others who have received the diagnosis would agree: it sounds like a death sentence.

Since you have come here, it is apparent to me that you are about to become well-educated about cancer, and that you are about to learn about where there is hope, how there is hope, and why there is hope.

Yours, Stage 4, is a tough one, without doubt.

You already know, based on your last sentence, that cancer is not 'fair'. It doesn't care.

It takes young and old alike, a drunk old smoker here, a health nut there, while some 90-year old lady swears by her cigars and a shot of whiskey every day. Cancer is a virus, and has no rhyme; it has no reason.

Or so it seems.

There is hope. To read about what doctors and scientists are discovering on virtually a daily basis now about genetics and epigenetics, for example, is to have hope that the riddles will be solved, even within the next 10 years.

In the meantime, I suggest Hope and Humor. Exercise is good, if an option, and you want to maintain your healthy nutrition. But I have always felt that, no matter what, cancer will not take more than it is biologically predisposed to take. I will maintain my sense of humor, and if I am able to contribute nothing more to the world than this from here on, I will laugh every day, and I will make somebody else laugh every day.

You may be pleasantly surprised at how this changes your view on the challenges ahead.

I wish you and your family the best.

Take care,

Joe