I’m an head scratcher case
How to begin? I’m so sorry that all on here have had to hear the ugly word of cancer!
I wonder if anyone has a plight like mine? It’s going to be a long one, but please hear me out…To start my CEA was normal in Feb 2023.
In Apr 2023, I had a robotic colectomy for a polyp with stage 1 adenocarcinoma. Happy to say my yearly checkup in Apr 2024 was great, but for some blessing, the PA in my general surgeons office, ordered a CEA, and it had increased from the negative, and set a ball rolling. I had a PET scan May2024 that lit up one node in the mediastinum…no where else. Then my gen surgeon recommended me to a thoracic surgeon, but the team decided a biopsy first, so I had a biopsy of the node last of May 2024, and it came back benign. My CEA went down a few points, but not normal. I was then ordered other tests/scans, all negative. But a follow-up CEA showed it had increased again, but I had to wait for another PET scan for insurance purposes, so the scan Sept 2024 showed the same node bigger and brighter in uptake of the contrast…but did not show anything anywhere else. Chest X-ray showed nothing. They wanted to do a different kind of biopsy, and I said no, surgery to get it out of there, and I wished a hundred times over I hadn’t let them disturb it with a biopsy the first time! Anyway, my node was golf ball size, and showed primary lung cells. So I’ve been diagnosed with stage 3A nonsmall cell lung cancer.
I started chemo and radiation yesterday. I know surgery is an important call in treatment, but they don’t even know where it’s at.
They pretty much tell me I a head scratcher…
I also had surgery in July of 2023 for a radial scar found in my right breast, which is precancerous tissue. The removed tissue was tested and came back benign. Yay! But to beat it all, I had genetic testing in 2022, and all was normal…
PS…I quit smoking over 30 years ago…
Hi
--First I'm so sorry to hear you're going through all of this. I'm brand new to this cancer journey so can't offer much insight (especially with experience) but am wishing you all the best and hope you beat this thing with chemo/radiation.
I do have a question: why do you regret having the biopsy? Do you feel that helped spread it?
Again, wishing you the best.
sending you prayers always. I am so glad to hear your friends and cousins have stepped up, that is wonderful. Please keep us posted and I hope everything goes smoothly for you tomorrow. Jill (Team Member) Thank you so much, Jill! Will do.
Thank you, and you don’t say, but I hope you’re not facing this walk too! Yes, I think it was aggravated as it was grape size on the first PET scan, and more than double in size in 4 months for the second one…so I think it helped it grow more, but as far as spreading, it was suppose to have been spread from the lung to the node already, as the cells showed primary cell in the node as lung.
Thanks for your kind words.
I can imagine your frustration with all of the available tools and to still have the doctors with a head scratch...this is something no patient wants to hear. It's good to hear that the many tests have come back to normal, but the process of figuring out can do a spiral emotionally and physically. Thank you for sharing your experience as I know many more can relate in one way or another. Wishing you the very best and future tests stay at the benign stage.
Yolanda (Team Member)
