Chuck Mullins,II

Following a couple weeks of fatigue; Chuck woke up on Memorial Day (May 31st) with severe shortness of breath and coughing up blood. I rushed him to the ER. They performed a chest X-ray and diagnosed him with pneumonia. He was admitted to the hospital, and it was there that the Dr told us that they saw something concerning on the X-ray and wanted to perform more tests. The next couple days included labs, CTs and an MRI. The results showed a 7.2cm mass in the center of his lungs and a few smaller ones in the left and right lung. The large mass was pinching the left pulmonary artery, likely cutting off blood flow to that lung. As well as putting pressure onto the heart and esophagus. It was decided that the safest procedure to determine what the mass was would be a fluid biopsy. This was able to be performed in his hospital room under local anesthesia. However, the next day we were told that they didn’t believe they could get the results necessary from the fluid. There were two options for biopsy that were both very risky. The procedure that was most common would be a bronchoscope. This would require anesthesia. The pulmonary doctor felt that with the compression of the left pulmonary artery, anesthesia was far to risky. Therefor, they determined that a CT guided biopsy of a smaller mass sitting close to the lung wall was going to be our best option to determine what we were dealing with. On the morning of June 4th they successfully performed the biopsy and were able to get a few samples. That afternoon they allowed Chuck to go hone for a few days to await results. On Tuesday June 8th we were given the news we didn’t want to hear. Chuck has small cell lung cancer. This type of cancer is not curable. The course of action to fight it is with four to eight rounds of chemotherapy. Each round will consist of 3 days chemo and immune therapy followed by eighteen days of recovery. We are very grateful that this can all be done outpatient at Roger Maris. This will hopefully get him to a cancer free remission. We were told the average length of remission is 1 1/2 to 2 years. At which time it comes back considerably more aggressive and immune to the chemotherapy. Our prayer is that by the time that happens there will be advances in research that allow us avenues to continue to fight. Chuck is at home and feeling reasonably well. The pneumonia has cleared up and the fluid biopsy removed enough fluid to help him feel decreased pressure on his lungs. We stand on the Word of God. This journey will be fought to the Glory of God. We ask you all to be Prayer Warriors for Chuck and for our family.