Like
any gifted assassin … lung cancer cloaked in stealth, slithered into my brain …
while my ‘cancer people’ were on guard since November staring into scans of
lung junk in the opposite lung, "concerning" but inconclusive due to
“air space concerning for pneumonia”.
Nothing
wrong with their protocol it’s just that lung cancer has no rules except its
primary objective – to kill me.
God
only knows what motivates the medical profession to base protocol inspired on a French Maginot Line
philosophy of folly to halting lung cancer. Is it science? Is it CYA? Or is it
lawyers? I vote for lawyers.
Yet
in a brief few months I was abducted from Stage 1 lung cancer to Stage 4 with
brain metastasis while guarded.
That
is until headaches appeared, and as headaches я me for almost 30 years my personal history did not help!
Soooooo when the “whoompa whoompa’ headaches began in February they caught my
attention because they were not Cluster Headaches, nor Migraines, nor garden
variety.
In
conversations with my daughter, I began to call them whoompa whoompa because
rhythmic sounds would trigger them, most noticeably at grocery stores near
noisy condensers for example in the refrigerated aisles. Google offered no
matches to that.
My
focus suddenly became these peculiar headaches, even I forgetting about the
lung cancer.
One
episode of wobbling walking the length of my hall in early February was weird
but never repeated.
Yes
I began to wake up to pain but God knows I have done that for decades and have
the weapons for that.
Even
my sleep machine normally programed to night train sounds began to trigger the
whoompa whoompa to the clack of the tracks.
Talking
with my primary care nurse practitioner in late February she began to raise the
flag that something else might be going on besides headaches, suggesting I see
an ophthalmologist, a neurologist and prescribing a round of antibiotics,
doxycycline 100mg.
Ophthalmologist
made sense and I set it up. Seeing a Neurologist because symptoms could be
indicative of MS or Lupus made no sense. My wife actually has MS and since 1985
and no neurologist has ever been of any help.
My
eyes checked out fine, though the ophthalmologist did first use the word
metastatic as a possible explanation.
Request
for a brain MRI by my nurse practitioner was rejected by medical insurance
because vertigo did not justify a brain MRI. Vertigo? Where did that come from?
Seems whoever reviews symptoms decided they were vertigo and stamped it
rejected.
Yes
headaches were getting worse but my palace guard still sentinel on the Maginot
Line of cancer care never took their eyes off my right lung junk even adding
another stronger round of antibiotics, levaquin to try to clear things up for a
readable PET Scan.
For
those fighting to outlive lung cancer in big cities, an Endobronchial
Ultrasound (EBUS) certainly is a safe and outpatient tool available to reach in through the scans
of lunk junk to find out what was going on.
For EBUS I would have to drive to Baltimore to have it done
at MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center by the experienced and gifted team
lead my William Krimsky, MD Director of Interventional Pulmonology.
As
my daughter remarked it was the first and only ‘outpatient procedure’ that I
actually walked away from the way it supposed to be since this began and only
fueling my anxieties over country mouse medicine vs big city.
Unfortunately
this successful EBUS hit the adenocarcinoma trifecta in my right lung and it now became a question of Stage 3A or Stage 3B lung cancer … again all eyes on
the lungs.
Even
with now increasing mention of my headaches to cancer people, new adenocarcinoma
overshadowed all.
Incredulously
and fortuitous I had just driven 90 miles, parked our car, arrived at Krimsky’s
office to talk pathology and staging when I had an episode of syncope and fell.
Taken
to their ER and it was bang bang bang a CT Scan was done of my head revealing
"suspicious for neoplastic process" immediately followed by a Brain
MRI "compatible with metastasis"
Welcome
in the blink of a eye to Stage 4 lung cancer with brain metastasis. Gone now
those relative lazy hazy crazy days of Stage 1 lung cancer.
The
speed of both testing, focus on the head and abandoning the Marginot Line folly
of staring into the lungs with such instant and effective results could not
have been possible anywhere else. Admitted overnight and prescribed
levetiracetam 500mg 2X daily plus dexamethasone 4 MG 3X headaches subsided
immediately.
Within
days I began 10 sessions of brain radiation therapy at Oakwood Cancer Center and not only
headaches but swelling and numbness began to immediately disappear.
I
always hate to say this when trying to outlive lung cancer especially Stage 4 but
I’m feeling good even better with each day especially today my graduation from brain
radiation.
Picking
up Patti for lunch from her care facility, we all celebrated our family’s dual
celebration today. My last brain zapping and World MS Day at Helena's Chocolate Café & Crêperie.
Come
to think of it we do celebrate some peculiar family moments.
Patrick Leer
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.jpg "Round 2 (Day 1) chemotherapy")
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.jpg "Andrews & Patel 'west shore' building Camp Hill, PA")
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