Right now, I just have to vent to anybody willing to listen (well, read). Those of you that see me and talk to me know that I cant put on weight, Im a hell of a lot more pale than Ive ever been in my life, and Im in more pain than you know because Im too proud to talk much about it. Dont just laugh and say you wish you had my problem, and tell me to eat more like thats the magic freaking solution to everything. Im eating and trying to be as normal as possible even though everything hurts to swallow, my left lung never feels like it gets enough air in it, I cough up blood by the mouthful, and I cant hardly walk 15 yards without getting out of breath and usually having a chorea (involuntary muscle spasm) episode that earns me a lot of stares and hurts a lot. Not only does it hurt, it exhausts me-- like that doesnt happen enough-- because they last between 45 minutes and 2 hours. Also, I seem to catch every possible cold, flu, and other infection because my immune system sucks, probably from the Graves disease. Yeah, that still isnt in remission. Of course, what everybody wants to hear about is the cancer. After my trip to the ER on December 18th, I realized that the doctors knew I had cancer before anybody else in my family, and I have a talent for reading people. Well, the radiologist telling me tell your primary doctor you have a mass on your carina. Hell know what that means gave enough away. I also knew the young doctor in the room trying to say it was probably just a cyst or calcified lymph node, skipping around the C-word, was full of crap because Ive had a calcified lymph node on the back of my head since I was a baby. They could tell that from a simple x-ray or CT scan; they wouldnt want a PET scan for that. Im not stupid, nor am I in denial, so I looked up cancers that could grow on cartilage that night. There are VERY few types, and none of them have a good prognosis, and only ONE type that I read about that affects the trachea, causes pneumonia and causes nearly flat spots-- NOT typical tumors-- on the lungs is small-cell (oat-cell) carcinoma. Once you look up the prognosis for that, youll stop telling me to think positive. There IS NOTHING positive about that type of cancer. If youre too busy to look it up yourself, here are the important parts: only 7% of people live more than 5 years after diagnosis, the chemo is incredibly harsh and can cause secondary cancers, most people only live between 8 months and 2 years with the chemo (even less time without chemo), and even if you get rid of it once, it comes back 9 chances out of 10 and nearly everyone dies the second time around. Not a single doctor is giving us more information until January 6th, Hodgkins lymphoma looks like a dream compared to this, but unfortunately for me Hodgkins doesnt cause masses. And to those of you comparing this to breast cancer: DONT. How in your mind do you think a cancer in normal tissue and fat can even compare to a cancer that affects actual organs (not just tissue) and even cartilage?! Breast cancer is its own battle, but DO NOT compare that to what I am going through.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 20:51:52 +0000
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