When
this began for me seven months ago just days before Christmas with that call
following my chest x-ray, I went immediately to ‘how long do I have to live’.
Anyone and everyone I ever knew who had lung cancer died and died soon.
“How long?”,
remained my primary question through the first two months of tests, biopsy and appointments.
In
retrospect it really was kind of nuts how long it took for the medical
profession to catch up to where I already was. I ‘knew’ at the first mention of
“vague nodular density” that I had lung cancer. It took medical science another
8 weeks to catch up.
"The
terrible ifs accumulate" Winston Churchill wrote reflecting on a failed
WWI British military campaign. Mix in a lung cancer diagnosis with the Internet, imagination, tall
tales, and fears and those terrible ifs accumulate exponentially.
Tossing
and turning through sleepless nights with my new BFF the Grim Reaper I would
finally fall asleep only to shoot up awake to the sound of banshees (maybe
owls, or morning doves) or the rumble of death coaches (possibly the trash
truck) … “how long” was driving me mad.
My nurse
practitioner warned me to be careful using the Internet but I could not resist
I was sucked into a growing universe of ‘terrible ifs’ as I typed in each test
result.
By the
time I got to the thoracic surgeon and oncologist level of appointments my lung
cancer had taken over my mind.
How did
I miss that ‘if you want to fight you can’ while accumulating those terrible
ifs?
by Patrick Leer
BLOGS:
#lungcancer
Caregivingly Yours, MS Caregiver @ http://caregivinglyyours.blogspot.com/
My Lung Cancer Odyssey @ http://lung-cancer-survivor.blogspot.com/
Technorati Tags: lung, cancer, survivor
I think it is "natural" for us to always go to the terrible ifs first and continually as we are dealing with any type of condition like this, illness, diagnosis, whatever. We can worry ourselves to death with what ifs or we can try to enjoy every day that is given us, because we really truly don't know how long, even the doctors' best guestimates or just that, guestimates, only God knows the length of our days. So in saying that, try not to worry, which is easier said than done since I am of the opinion in a similar case I would have the terrible ifs too. Your nurse practitioner was wise to say stay off the internet, there is good info out here and bad info, hard to discern sometimes when dealing with such a diagnosis. One can get wrapped up in the internet and forget to enjoy what is real life and one's own individual condition.
ReplyDeletebetty