The Story Starts

It shouldn’t take a serious illness to appreciate the amazing people in my life, but when the heavens fall, and friends and family step up, I get overwhelmed with the generosity of the world. For everyone who has expressed concern and offer of help – many thanks.

Thursday: I had an appointment with my primary care physician where I voiced uneasiness over a shortness of breath starting several months previous. I told him I chalked this up to aging and generally felt healthy but wanted to have it checked out.

He administered an EKG in the office, which was normal, and had me do an X-ray and comprehensive blood test. Within a few hours of the X-ray he called me told me my left lung was filled with fluid and I needed more tests.

Friday: Using an ultrasound machine a doctor located the best place and drained my lung of 1500ml of fluid. I then had a CAT scan. Within a few hours my doctor called and told me about the tumor at the bottom of my left lung.

Monday: Today was my first meeting with Dr. Shao in 15 years. He got me through cancer once before and I am confident he will do so again. He believes the tumor is again a synovial sarcoma, the same cancer I had in 2005, based on the tumor’s smooth exterior, the slow growth, and no markers in blood or other areas of my body indicating cancer. He will not be sure until he can sample cells from the tumor, or analysis of the fluid from my lung gives a clear indication of the type of cancer.

This time around there are a few differences from 2005, a significant one being that the tumor is in a place that can be easily biopsied. Dr. Shao noted that in 2005 he relied heavily on chemotherapy but that now such a treatment would not be a good idea. Today I am older and weaker and most likely unable to withstand the toxicity of the chemo drugs, and they would not be as effective the second time. Dr. Shao thinks surgery will be the primary way to attack this.

Next Steps: Over the next several days I will schedule a biopsy and get a head-to-toe PET scan, an imaging test that has even finer resolution than the CAT scan.

I will continue to post all updates here to share any news.