Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting. History: As most of you know, the lower lobe of my right lung was removed and I had chemo treatments in 2009.
In December of 2019, a routine CT scan showed a nodule in my left lung and a needle biopsy confirmed it was cancerous, although a different type from 2009.
Since the whole lobe could not be removed without reducing pulmonary functionality too much, a "tumor conference" of doctors decided the best thing to do was to do a wedge section surgery.
I had the wedge section surgery using a scope in Feb 2020. My last appointment with the surgeon was about a week before the pandemic. I asked him why I was still in so much pain and he said it was nerve damage from forcing the scope between my ribs and could take up to a year to heal.
The nerve pain seemed to get a little better over the summer in quarantine, but in the fall it got worse and by November it became excruciating. My primary care doc scheduled a CT scan.
She called me immediately when she got the results. Apparently the surgeon had "leaked" cancer cells into my chest wall and it was in the process of growing and destroying 2 ribs.
My PCP made me an appointment with a different surgeon and although he had a PET scan and a brain MRI done, he said he needed to make sure there wasn't any cancer in the chest cavity and also whether the mass was stuck to the outside of the lung wall. I had the exploratory surgeon in Jan 2021 and ended up with a collapsed lung the morning after I was released and had a ride back to UT in an ambulance.
In mid Feb thru late Mar I had 25 radiation treatments and 6 chemo treatments.
