making noise for lung cancer

(originally published in Caregivingly Yours, June 10, 2012)

Lung cancer is the number one cancer killer in America … this one reoccurring fact kept leaping out of the screen as I researched myths and facts about lung cancer.

Yet despite claiming more lives than any other cancer, lung cancer receives comparatively little research funding or even attention.

Lung cancer kills more women each year than breast, ovarian, and uterine cancers combined. But unless you live under a rock how can you miss the shelves of pink product packaging during breast cancer awareness month.

The American Cancer Society’s defensiveness over their silence and underfunding of lung cancer only seems to add to the incongruity.

Is it the stigma of smoking? … anyone even non-smokers can develop lung cancer. Lung cancer in ‘never-smokers’ is now considered the 6th most common cause of cancer deaths in the United States.

Firefighters and emergency responders are at increased risk of lung cancer. 


Sitting in traffic puts you at risk. World Health Organization reports that "diesel exhaust IS a cause of lung cancer" and gasoline exhaust is "probably carcinogenic to humans."

Is it an age thing? … lung cancer can strike people of any age including children.

So why is lung cancer overlooked and underfunded? … too much whistling past the graveyard and too little research  … or are too many advocates simply silenced by the low survival rate?

Our family is one of almost a quarter of a million families that will receive a lung cancer diagnosis this year.

160,000 Americans will die this year of lung cancer.

Lung Cancer Awareness (1 min 48 sec)

It’s time “to drag lung cancer out of the shadows and focus public attention on this cruel and unrelenting killer”  Leaders of the Lung Cancer Free World

by Patrick Leer

Dr. Troy Moritz, DO

To paraphrase the most interesting man in the world "I don't always have surgery, but when I do, I prefer Troy Moritz, DO. Stay healthy, my friends."

Previously in this journal I have written about my successful lung cancer surgery and recovery. Yet to call it mine is to leave out the major player in the story, the thoracic surgeon Troy A. Moritz, DO, PinnacleHealth Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery.

What impressed me the most about this man were his people skills. He took the time to know me before he cut which I believe better enabled me to return to who I was by using minimally invasive procedures.

Surgery is scary and maybe more so to those in the waiting room because the unknown is even scarier. Dr. Moritz made the time when I was unconsciously oblivious to keep our daughter more than informed almost feeling involved. While I remember nothing, she got to see pictures of his hand in my lung. J

Enough of me, how about I let you hear and see him speak for himself in his 2 minute You Tube video:

Patrick Leer

BLOGS:

Caregivingly Yours, MS Caregiver @ http://caregivinglyyours.blogspot.com/

My Lung Cancer Odyssey @ http://lung-cancer-survivor.blogspot.com/

(originally posted in Caregivingly Yours June 3, 2012)

health lung cancer harrisburg pennsylvania

Return to normalcy

(originally posted in Caregivingly Yours May 18, 2012)

Wednesday, two months after successful lung cancer surgery, everything came back together for the first time. Our world returned to its normalcy.

In other words life is now just as it was before surgery, only 8 weeks later. I have no loss of abilities, restrictions, or pain.

Why should this benchmark start any different than any other caregiving day as I spent too many hours on the phone and on hold working and stressing as Patti’s POA on looming changes to Patti’s Medicare supplemental insurance?

With the cooler part of the day wasted it was time to mow the lawn, walking approximately a mile while pushing a 60 lb (27 kg) mulching power mower in 86˚F (30˚C) temps.

Next I drove to pick up Patti. Exiting her care facility assisted dining room she was quite sure her diner had been “bangin” but had no memory of what she had just eaten.

Heading out to a nearby park for a push and roll (a gentlemen never discusses a lady’s weight but let’s say Patti weighs more than a lawnmower) I pushed her for a one mile loop stopping for some hamming it up in their amphitheater, “all the world’s a stage”.

Then the pièce de résistance (insert drum roll)

… a one person unassisted transfer of Patti from her wheelchair to her bed, followed by undressing and changing her for sleep.

Unlike the miles of pushing, transferring is about lifting non-ambulatory weight. Even after transfer, while many people have changed and dressed an infant, a non-ambulatory adult is the exact same principal just exponentially more upper body strength involved.

It was a godsend that the care facility era was already in place before surgery and recovery took me out of the daily equation for two months. Patti was safe and completely cared for.

Though it’s a bittersweet return to normalcy for me as Multiple Sclerosis memory and cognitive symptoms confound Patti even realizing or remembering any loss in outings or absence of me transferring her to bed the majority of nights each week.

Normalcy? An interesting concept isn’t it? 

Caregivingly Yours, Patrick Leer 

videos: www.youtube.com/daddyleer

travels with a faux down vest

(originally published in Caregivingly Yours May 11,2012)

“A journey is a person itself; no two are alike.”

John Steinbeck, ‘Travels with Charley: In Search of America’

Visiting a neighbor and recent spouse caregiver widower we share surgery stories. With 9 hrs of back surgery and basically a titanium spine his trumps mine, though bittersweet, of course, since home caregiving for a spouse with RA (rheumatoid arthritis) made his surgery previously impossible.

Wearing my faux down vest to protect my ribs while driving, my return to my ‘road rat’ self was MCing the Prince George’s County Maryland Special Olympic Spring Games.  As if divine coincidence nothing could have been more motivating and rewarding than to be surrounded by heroes.

Returning I stopped to visit old friends. Surprised by the home accessibility modifications I realized I've been too wrapped up in my own life. A manly, man hug can often be an awkward dance until ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) prevents one of you from lifting his arms; I learned what it is to hug a friend.

Pushing Patti around an “Art Walk”, she could enjoy the magnitude of the art of an Italian street painter turned sidewalk artist. However since much of the art was staged in restaurants we soon disappeared into our favorite, Helena's Chocolate Cafe & Creperie for dinner. A chocolate raspberry crepe is art in our book!

With each lawn mowing and push of Patti’s wheelchair I feel the muscles strengthening even though Patti’s Multiple Sclerosis memory symptoms prevent her from remembering whether outings have increased or decreased

Driving three hours in the rain to visit cousins in New Jersey I sit down to dinner with two other cancer survivors. Still weird to think of myself as a ‘survivor’ and frankly I ‘am not worthy’ contrasted to my youngest cousin who was my inspiration through my darkest moments. Many kids turn 6 every year but this guy also celebrates his 5^th year cancer free since battling liver cancer and all the while living with Muscular Dystrophy.

After all how can I say that someone inspired me if I do not let them climb all over me and my ribs to really find out if they are healed after lung cancer surgery?  … Seems I do not need that faux down vest anymore.

by Patrick Leer

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