Frequently Asked Questions
How and when did all this happen?
For the first few months of 2023, I had an intermittent backache. Several people I know often complain of back pain, so I just took it as another of those many things attributed to getting older. I thought maybe I hadn’t been sleeping properly, or leaning over my phone too much, or spending too much time in my easy chair. At my request, my primary care doctor sent me to physical therapy, and they identified a knot in my left rhomboid area. With a little kneading and exercise, I felt better – until the therapy stopped. The pain returned in late April, and was enough to send me to the Tylenol bottle (see link below about back pain as a symptom of lung cancer.)
Around that same time, my godmother Lillie starting declining. For the past two-plus years, since her husband Joe died of Covid in January 2021, I had been taking care of her because she had dementia and she was like a second mother to me. She never had children, so I became her power of attorney (along with two of Joe’s cousins) and we relocated her from Wilmington, Delaware (where I was born) to a memory care community in Williamsburg. Between me and hubby, we visited her every single day. She was well cared for and mobile until shortly after her 90th birthday. Following a couple of falls, her health deteriorated, and she died on May 4. We returned her to Delaware so she could be buried with her husband and also had the funeral there.
All that to say I was obviously busy with other matters and my back pain took a back seat. After Lillie’s funeral, we took a planned month-long trip to California to visit my mom (who also has dementia) and my siblings. By the time we returned in late June, I was hitting the Tylenol bottle enough to concern hubby. So I went to see my doctor in July. I told her I was also noticing a little “catch” in my breathing when I sneezed, coughed or yawned, and suggested a chest X-ray. She sent me the same day.
The next day she called me (when the doctor calls you herself you know that’s a red flag) to say there were “abnormalities” in my chest X-ray, and she wanted me to go to for a CT scan. After the CT scan, she called again, this time to say she was referring me to a pulmonologist. The pulmonologist sent me for a PET scan – and that was the first time I heard the words “possibility of cancer.” The next diagnostic was a biopsy – after which the pulmonologist told me I “definitely” had lung cancer. So here we are.
If you've got back pain or increased coughing, I would encourage you to ask your doctor for a chest X-ray and a CT scan. Check out this article for some sobering new developments in the increase of lung cancer among women:
I've never known you to smoke. How did you get lung cancer?
I certainly did my share of "experimentation" in my late teens and early 20s, and in my bar-stool days I was exposed to a fair share of second-hand smoke. But nearly 50 years have come and gone since those days, so no, I'm not a smoker, although even that little bit of exposure is listed in my records as "former smoker." The American Cancer Society says 80% of people who get lung cancer have smoked -- but that leaves 20% of people who get it by other means, such as infection, asbestos, air pollution or DNA (gene) mutation.
Unfortunately, if you read the article linked in the previous question, you know that lung cancer is increasing in non-smoking women who are 35 to 54 -- and researchers are not sure why. Lung cancer is still far more common in older patients, like me. I'm 72.
Are you a candidate for surgery or other forms of therapy, in addition to radiation and chemotherapy?
Although concentrated in my left lung, cancer cells can be transferred throughout the pleural space by way of the blood stream or the lymph system. That's what has happened to me. I have spots of cancer in my right supraclavicular lymph nodes and a little wedge-shaped "consolidation" at the right lower lobe. Surgery would not get all of it, and neither would proton therapy. The five sessions of radiation therapy I've had has killed many of the cancer cells and halted the growth of many new ones. But the chemo is the power treatment that we know works because it uses powerful chemicals to kill fast-growing cells. See the Treatment tab for more details.
So how do you feel?
After my first chemo treatment on Sept. 1, I spent the next two weeks utterly fatigued. Getting up and getting dressed left me exhausted. My food started tasting metallic, like I was chewing a ball of aluminum foil (using plastic utensils helps). And the pain was not letting up. I was still taking the Tylenol (per doctor’s orders) and an occasional half-tablet of Oxycodone. But after the second treatment, I started feeling better. The pain became less and so did my exhaustion. I’m guessing that’s why the chemo treatments were scheduled three weeks apart; it takes awhile for the body to recover enough for the next one. I had my third treatment on Oct. 13 with good results, and the follow-up scans showed a small but measurable decrease in the presence of cancer. But as long as those nasty little cancer cells are being destroyed, I’m here for the fight, fatigue and metallic taste notwithstanding!