The Back Story

Many of you have asked how I came to be diagnosed with lung cancer with no symptoms. It is a story of God's grace to me.

In early November I had a "bad cold." After about 10 days of this I thought maybe I should go to the dr. for something. But I didn't.

Later that week I was at the grocery store which is in the same parking lot as two "Urgent Cares." As I entered the store I thought to myself, I should go in case I am contagious. I had plans to babysit the next day for 3 young girls in foster care.

I completely forgot that thought until I started up my car to go home when I heard very clearly in my mind - GO to Urgent Care. This time I did. There was no line, the Dr saw me quickly and diagnosed me with bronchitis. She said, "let's get a quick x-ray to rule out pneumonia since we are seeing a lot of that." My "quick x-ray" showed walking pneumonia so she wrote some prescriptions and I went home.

I had only been home a short while when I received a phone call. Caller ID identified it as Healthcare so I took the call. It was the Dr from Urgent Care. She had called to tell me that when the radiologist read the x-ray, he saw a "concerning" nodule in my right lung. The Dr told me to contact my primary care Dr and get a CT scan but that it could be anything from scarring to infection. She didn't want me to worry. I saw my pcp the next day who assured me it was probably nothing but due diligence demanded a CT scan. The CT scan showed several nodules, all of which looked "suspicious." On Dec 23 I had a biopsy of the largest one and it returned as non small cell adenocarcinoma - lung cancer. A further meeting revealed to us that there were in fact 5 tumors of varying sizes in two different lobes of my right lung, all suspected to be cancer, which meant the cancer was already metastasizing. (some were too small to biopsy)

I feel great and am proceeding to carry on with all of my activities that my hijacked schedule allows, including my weight lifting.

I am blessed to have a "great cloud of witnesses" lifting me before my heavenly father. Thank you for being that for me.

Mary