Doug Rahner

Here is my story. It all started September 8,2018. I was riding my bicycle in the Ithaca Ride For Life which is a 100 mile bike ride raising money  for the Southern Tier Aids program. I was 3 miles into it when I went off the road. ( How  or why this happened is a bit of a mystery as I am missing a few seconds surrounding the accident) I landed in a ditch on a bunch of rocks next to a culvert. Luckily I was swiftly attended to by my team mates ( Known as the Homer Ileus) who were all medical professionals. I knew I had a broken collar bone and was taken  by ambulance  to Cayuga Medical Center. 


There I had a lot of CT scans which showed a whole lot more wrong ( The list: Open Fracture clavicle, fracture scapula, fractured glenohumeral joint, a small collapsed lung, 9 rib fractures , including a flail chest( Non medical types can google this), a lacerated spleen and a small compression fracture of the T12 Vertebra . I was taken by helicopter to Upstate Hospital, had surgery on my clavicle ( did not have surgery on my spleen). I stayed there for 4 days, went home and all things considered recovered remarkably well.


Now here comes the twist: They found a bit of a mass in the left upper lobe of my lung when I had my accident. 2 months later a second CT was done which showed it may have gotten bigger. On December 6th I had a needle biopsy of the mass and December 11 found out that it was Adenocarcinoma. A Pet Scan showed a positive Lymph node. Additional testing showed that it was positive for the ALK gene mutation ( More of that in subsequent entries)  I am getting Chemo, surgery and are also doing alternative medicine stuff.


Thank you for visiting my Caring Bridge page: Well wishes ,comments etc are welcome.