January 24, 2023 · 11:01 pm
↓ Jump to Comments

… Lung cancer free!?

If an exclamation point and a question mark in the headline seem confusing to you, join the club, you are not alone.

A heads up here: I have written about my experience with lung cancer in a number of posts, all of which I gathered into one Page – My experience with lung cancer if you want to catch up.

I just had my first post-op visit with the surgeon who removed the tumor and part of my left lung on 11 January of this year. He said that there are currently no signs of cancer in my lung or system. That’s the good news – right now I am cancer free.

The picture is an x ray of my lung following the surgery.

After I met with my surgeon, I had a meeting with my oncologist. He gave me the not so good news – that the tumor removed was six centimeters which qualifies as ‘large.’ Because of that, there is a good chance that it left cancerous micro-organisms in my system that can trip me up in the days, weeks, months and years ahead. These cancerous organisms can be free to travel anywhere in my body to start another cancer attack.

So, while I may be cancer free at the moment, I need to guard against future attacks by the same organism. He recommended chemotherapy and immunotherapy in either order.

I confess to a great deal of ignorance about chemo. I have heard horror stories about side effects as well as simply after effects. I said that at this point I did not want to undergo chemotherapy.

Right now I am in the immunotherapy camp. The treatments and side effects seem less onerous. Also they actually use the body’s own immune system to do a better job finding cancer cells so it can attack and kill them. Chemotherapy kills fast-growing cells – both cancerous and non-cancerous.

This is day one of my new ‘after cancer’ life.

Anyone who has any suggestions or stories about folks in my situation and what they decided is welcome to share with me. I truly feel like a babe in the woods here.

Tony

9 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , ,

9 responses to “… Lung cancer free!?”

  1. Kirk
    January 24, 2023 at 11:51 pm

    I used to be a practicing seventh day Adventist and they have a very strong health message. There is/was a woman who was diagnosed with a massive tumor in her breast. She did not want to undergo traditional treatments so she did several things to help and if I remember them correctly….

    1) lots and lots of water 2) juicing, this is an extreme vegan diet which you can Google of need be 3) religion and faith, both in heavy doses 4) huge doses of doing good will to others, community service and living your life for others.

    Not an easy prescription I know and I doubt I could do it myself. If you want I can get her name and possibly a link to where you can download or order her video. Oh, she kicked it entirely, the cancer disappeared. I’m sure that a ton of prayer helps too.

    Kirk

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  2. Esoterica
    January 25, 2023 at 7:43 am

    I’m so pleased to hear you’re cancer-free! A family member is going though cancer cancer now. They’re a physician at a research hospital and receiving mistletoe as an adjunct treatment, so it’s something to consider and perhaps talk to your oncologist about. Wishing you all the best! https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9634211/

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  3. Sandra
    January 25, 2023 at 3:03 pm

    So Happy to hear the Good News! God is Good. May you Continue to be Healthy.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  4. justchunty
    January 27, 2023 at 6:46 pm

    Very happy to hear the good news. There is a doctor (Dr William Li) who has said very good things about immunotherapy. He has published a book (Eat to Beat Disease). He is very active on social media (Facebook, YouTube). I hope you can watch some of his videos. Might inspire you and give you some confidence about your decision. Hope this helps.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a comment