The Beginning

I've had this cough for a few years since about 2009. Nothing crazy. Mostly thought it was a cold, or a persistent allergy. It didn't really seem to get much better when I took medication though. Doctors told me it was bronchiospasms, bronchitis, pneumonia. They told me it was my weight. Asthma,

Then in 2011 I coughed up a little bit of blood. Just once or twice. Just enough to scare me. But Don had been laid off, and I was working two jobs. I figured it was stress. I had been sick, maybe I just broke a blood vessel coughing. Not unheard of.

Fast forward to May of 2012. Went to the ER for pneumonia. Had X-rays and CT done showing my left lung was partially deflated. No big deal. Follow up with your PCP soon. I was treated for asthma, allergies, consistently on steroids. Still the cough lingered. From May to September, I was treated with a shotgun approach to medications.

In September I went camping with one of my boys. When I came home I was having some chest pain and discomfort. I thought I was having a heart attack. Went to the ER and was given an x-ray and treated, again, for Pneumonia and a partial lung collapse.

This time they had me follow up ASAP with a pulmonologist. By here I was done. I was tired, and I wanted to go to bed for once without hacking in the middle of the night and waking my husband. So I went to see an incredible doctor in my area. He sent me in for a round of tests, and another CT scan.

That CT scan showed that there might be something blocking my airway a bit. Probably just mucous, or a fungal infection or a cyst. Let's go do a bronchoscopy and just take a look down there.

Then they found a mass. Couldn't biopsy because it was bleeding when they brushed it. But they wanted it out. I was sent to a thoracic surgeon to get the evil thing out.

When I met with him I was met with the wonderful (sarcasm) news that it was cancer. Neuroendocrine carcinoma. Low grade, which means low malignancy. Low chance of malignancy and the tumor metastasizing. Low chance that someone would even get this cancer to begin with.

I'm not playing those odds.

They're taking my entire left lung out on November 5th 2012. The cancer is in the main stem bronchial tube on the left side. Completely blocking the lower left and mostly blocking the upper left. It's descended down into my left lung.

I am scared to fucking death. But I am going to continue on. This is my journey, my story.

I will be a survivor.