I have one of those names that solicits the question, “how do you spell that?”
I was Kathy with a K – (Kat for short) for 49 years, even when it didn’t matter. For instance, placing an order over the phone for carry-out shouldn’t really be a big deal, as Kathy spelled with a K or a C is pronounced the same. None the less, the question is almost always asked, and I have invariably offered the answer, “with a K”. That is, until Tuesday, October 24, 2017. On that day, I became Kathy with a C. The Big C. The life altering, never-again-the-same C.
I had waited all afternoon for the call, and when it came, I swear the phone didn’t even ring. I was just holding it in my hand and I remember putting it to my ear and hearing my doctor say, the words “Kathy it’s not good, you have cancer”.
As in great big – all caps – CANCER!
So, how did I get here?
First of all, I truly 1,000% believe that everything happens for a reason!
Second, yes, I am a former smoker who had smoked for 32 years. I quit in November of 2012, when I was diagnosed with mild COPD, and I switched to vaping. Quitting allowed me to stop the nagging smokers cough, no longer smell like an ashtray, walk up two flights of stairs with an armload of laundry and breath normally while doing so, and even take up running in 2014.
Third, I had no signs or symptoms that anything was wrong. Not until a sunny, hot and humid, late summer day.
An unplanned journey…
September 30, 2017 – Our youngest, Ben, is a member of his high school marching band and my husband, Brian, and I volunteer for the pit crew, which means we move band equipment on and off the field during band performances. On this particular day, the band was playing a competition in an outdoor stadium that has a very steep hill going down to and up out of the performance arena. They did really well in the preliminaries and made it into the finals, so we moved equipment on and off the field twice that day. After hustling up the hill for the second time, while pulling a heavy speaker cabinet, I had a difficult time catching my breath and my chest felt tight. I attributed it to the thick hot air and the fact that I was practically running to get out of the way of the band coming up the hill behind me.
October 4, 2017 – I still wasn’t feeling well, so I visited the clinic at our local pharmacy. The nurse practitioner listened to my lungs and said they sounded clear, but she could tell I was having difficulty taking a deep breath. She prescribed Singulair and five days of Prednisone. She almost (remember my comment above about things happening, or in this case, not happening for a reason) gave me a steroid inhaler, but decided against it, saying that if I didn’t improve, to contact my general practitioner.
October 11, 2017 – I had taken the last of the Prednisone four days prior and I was back to feeling short of breath and tightness in my chest. I called my doctor’s office and got in the same day. My doctor was out, so I was evaluated by a nurse practitioner I had never seen before. Based on my symptoms, she ordered a chest x-ray (again, things happen for a reason) instead of just prescribing a steroid inhaler, which she too almost did.
October 13, 2017 – My doctor, Dr. C, called and said the x-ray showed a small mass in my left lung. She couldn’t rule out an infection, so she ordered a CT Scan with contrast for October 17.
October 18, 2017 – CT Scan showed a tumor, roughly the size of a quarter, in my upper left lung and inflammation of lymph nodes below the tumor. I was scheduled for a second CT Scan on October 20, this one with a needle-led biopsy of the tumor.
Side Note: The CT Scan needle-led biopsy. Holy %&# * that hurt! The procedure requires one to be awake so the doctor can instruct when to breathe in and out and when to hold it. I had to lay on my back and be completely still. My upper left chest, just above the tumor was cleaned and covered with Lidocaine cream. Then, I was given three injections of Lidocaine via a long needle, to deaden the internal area (OUCH – I remember tears running into my ears and not being able to wipe them away). The CT scan was used to guide a very long tube as it was inserted in my chest, through the wall of my lung and into the tumor. A tool was pushed through the tube and was used to grab several pieces of the tumor for biopsy. When it was finally over, after about 45 minutes, I was bandaged and helped to my feet. I was in severe pain and I kept telling the nurse I thought something was not right. I felt like I had been stabbed (which essentially is what happened). She assured me that everything went as it should have and that I would feel better soon. It was so hard to walk out of the room and see my husband and sister watch me walk down the hall to be discharged, all three of us crying. We stopped and picked up some soup and sandwiches on the way home and, after I ate and burped several times, I did feel a bit better. I have always said I am allergic to pain, and this certainly proved it!)
October 24, 2017 – The call that changed my life and the lives of those I love. After hearing the diagnosis, my mind shut down and I bit my tongue so hard it hurt for days. I had the overwhelming desire to scream, run, and drink a bottle of whiskey, all at the same time, but my doctor kept talking and I couldn’t move. I don’t remember actually hearing what she said. My controlling and organizational nature had pre-determined that I would have a notebook and pen handy to write it all down.
- Oncologist appointment October 27 – 10:30
- non-small cell adenocarcinoma – upper left lung
- possible spread to lymph glands
- too young for this
Sharing the news with our kids, parents and close friends…
Since our oldest son, Jake, and his wife, Makayla, live about a four-hour drive from us, we told them over the phone, which was really hard to do. Thankfully, they decided to drive in the next evening to be here when we told our youngest.
Telling my parents was the hardest part. My sister, Gwen, already knew because I asked her to go with us to the biopsy. My father had lung cancer in 2006, which was found very early. He had the tumor surgically removed and no other treatment was necessary. Ironically, he had just two weeks prior been diagnosed with prostate cancer and was getting everything setup to begin radiation for that. With both of us going through cancer at the same time, my mom was a mess.
We told our best friends and my husband took care of telling his parents and his sister, as I didn’t feel I was up to telling anyone else.
Of course, I had to share my situation with my boss and she informed my coworkers, who became my cheerleaders throughout my treatment. Not a day went by that I didn’t receive at least one note, letter or card in the mail. They sent care packages and prepared dinners for my family. I was given the opportunity to work from home every day, and for that I am very thankful.
Testing 1-2-3…
October 27, 2017 – Brian and I met with my new doctor, a highly recommended, very energetic and extremely positive oncologist, Dr. H. He began teaching us the language of cancer, complete with vocabulary words we couldn’t spell or pronounce. I became thankful for my handy-dandy notebook, which became a traveling companion to every appointment and procedure. Dr. H ordered a PET Scan for November 1, MRI of my brain for November 3, and a liquid biopsy on the spot (fancy name for blood test) all to see if the cancer had spread outside of my lung and if I had genetic tumor markers. He said, “I am not in the business of curing cancer, I am in the business of killing it”. He never mentioned survival rate, other than to say he was aiming for seeing that I lived to be an old woman. He talked about chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery. He spoke at length about a brand-new immunotherapy drug called Imfinzi that had recently been approved by the FDA for use in people with bladder and urinary tract cancer and was very close to being approved to treat lung cancer. We walked out of there feeling that I had been put in capable hands.
November 6, 2017 – We met with Dr. H to get the results of all of the tests. Thankfully, the cancer was only in my lung and had not spread anywhere else! However, it did appear that it may have infected my station six lymph node. In order to setup a plan of treatment, I would have to have a biopsy of the lymph node to determine if it was cancerous. The blood test did not show any tumor markers, so I would not be having targeted chemotherapy treatments.
November 8, 2017 – Appointment with Dr. F, a cardio thoracic surgeon, who agreed with Dr. H in that I would have to have a biopsy to determine if the lymph node was cancerous and that he would attempt to remove it either way. The procedure would require a hospital stay of one to three days and two weeks off work for recovery.
November 13, 2017 – I was admitted to the hospital for the biopsy. I didn’t lie earlier when I said I am allergic to pain. When I woke up in recovery I was in the worst pain I had ever felt! Even the nurse cried along with me. Thankfully Dr. F believed in doing whatever it took to make me comfortable, so I was given some pretty heavy pain meds, which knocked me out for most of the next 24 hours. When I woke up enough to realize what was going on around me, there were two incisions, one on my back (where the camera was during surgery) and one under my left arm (where the surgical instruments were inserted), right where my bra strap goes. I had a chest tube in the incision under my arm, a catheter, oxygen, an epidural and an IV in my hand with three different bags of fluid. I honestly don’t know what I expected, but I wasn’t prepared for any of this. Thankfully my friend, Jan, stayed with me at the hospital that first night. Dr. F said the surgery was pretty rough in that he had a difficult time getting to the lymph node because of its location. He was unable to remove it because he couldn’t tell if it had attached itself to my aorta. I was on a liquid diet until the epidural and chest tube were removed on the third evening of my stay, and that is also when Dr. F told me the lymph node had tested positive for cancer. After spending four days in the hospital, I was released very late in the evening on November 16.
Not my idea of a good time…
November 20, 2017 – Appointment with my oncologist, Dr. H. My diagnosis was Stage III-A Adenocarcinoma, the most common form of lung cancer in both smokers and non-smokers. We discussed how hard I wanted to attack it and, honestly, I think I just sat there waiting for someone else to make the decision. I was still taking pain killers from the surgery and I couldn’t wrap my brain around anything at that point. I remember Brian asking questions and Dr. H answering him and then, just like that, I was going to have the most aggressive form of chemo available because I was “young and healthy” and Dr. H felt that I could handle it (what exactly did that mean?). The plus was that I wouldn’t lose my hair (the farthest thing from my mind), and I would need to have a porta catheter implanted in my chest (WTF?) to receive two to three rounds of chemotherapy that would be administered every three weeks. More than likely, radiation would follow and then the soon-to-be approved immunotherapy drug, Imfinzi. I was given a vitamin B shot and told to start taking 800 MCG of Folic acid every day, along with Claritan (or the generic) for bone pain that I might experience from one of the chemo drugs (huh?)
November 24, 2017 – The day after Thanksgiving and I was, once again, going under the knife. This time for out-patient surgery with Cardio Thoracic Surgeon, Dr. F, to place my porta catheter (port for short). Four days later, I was standing in the shower with Brian holding me up as the water soaked off the bandage covering my port. Suddenly it was all real. Seeing the incision, fearing what was to come, unsure if it would work, questioning the side effects of the chemo, wondering if I was strong enough to do this, wondering if I would be alive next year at this time. The weight of it all came crashing down and I had a big pity-party, right there in the shower.
Fighting the “Good Fight”…
November 29, 2017 – The decision to fight this nasty, uninvited presence in my body with the “Big Guns” required a little extra ammo in the form of IV fluids. A nurse came to my house and accessed my port the evening prior to chemo. The very first time was excruciating because I hadn’t even had it for a full week and the area was still extremely tender. A large bag of saline was hooked up to my IV through the port. It was concealed, along with a pump, in a duffle-type bag that I had to carry around with me until the morning after chemo. I also had to take a steroid by mouth called Dexamethasone (I lovingly refer to it as the Demon Drug) in pill form, twice a day on the day before, the day of and the day after Chemo was administered. Well, within 30 minutes of taking the first dose, I literally wanted to pull my skin off! I called the oncology nurse at Dr. H’s office and she said to only take a half a pill a day from now on. Even that made me feel fidgety, but way more able to deal with it.
November 30, 2017 – My first chemo treatment. Brian and I met with Dr. H to discuss any questions, which I didn’t really have at that point. The nurse took blood right from my port, which had already been accessed the night before for the saline IV, and then I got comfortable in the infusion room and watched for over three hours as two different bags of anti-nausea drugs, one bag of Dexamethasone steroid (more of the Demon Drug), one bag of regular saline and two different bags of the actual chemo (Cisplatin and Alimta) were administered. When all of that was done, a small dental floss-size box was attached to my left upper arm. The medicine inside was Neulasta and it would release into my bloodstream about 27 hours after the chemo was finished. It is used to rebuild the white blood cells in your system that are killed or damaged by the chemo. Other than being super tired, I didn’t really feel all that bad that day. I actually worked from home all afternoon.
December 1, 2017 and beyond – I didn’t sleep most of that first night, probably due to the Demon Drug in the IV. My face, neck and ears swelled up and all were so red, I looked severely sunburned. The nurse came around 10:00 a.m. to remove the IV and immediately said, “yep, you have steroid face”. Well, at least I knew that wasn’t something unusual. Over the next few days, I started feeling pretty bad. Nauseous, no appetite, fidgety, exhausted but unable to sleep, pounding headaches, spacy, flu-like body aches, racing heart, constipation and my whole body (but most intensely in my feet) felt like it was on fire. I also had the sensation that my breath was so hot that it was burning my tongue – we began to call it Dragon Breath. I developed nose bleeds and started using saline nose spray, which greatly helped. I took the anti-nausea pills that were prescribed by Dr. H’s office, but they only worked for about three of the eight hours needed between doses. It was around this time that an old friend, whom I hadn’t been in contact with for many years, came to visit. Though I was a little hesitant at first, Mary Jane (in the form of hard candy) ended up helping me get through the hardest days by allowing me to eat and rest comfortably. Most of the side effects/feelings lasted on and off for the better part of two weeks after the chemo treatment. I continued to work from home every day. Some afternoons I would have to lie down for a bit, but I always worked my eight hours. Four days before I was to have the second round of chemo and was just starting to feel a tiny bit like myself, my hair started falling out in handfuls in the shower. My ever-present, sweetheart of a husband, researched and found a wig shop that would take our insurance. One afternoon we went out to lunch and stopped at the shop. Through some tears and help from a breast cancer survivor, we chose one, just in case all of my hair fell out. Another little nugget that came out of my husband’s constant search for anything that could help me/us through this chapter, was his discovery of CBD Oil, aka cannabidiol.
Side Note about CBD Oil: This all-natural substance is derived from the marijuana plant but it does not have the psychotic properties that THC (the chemical that gives you a “high”) has. After a little digging, he found it at the local vape shop where I was already getting my vape supplies. It is a bit pricey, but the dose is very small per day, so the bottle lasts longer than regular vape juice. It can also be used sublingually (drops under the tongue), but it doesn’t taste very good.
December 21, 2017 – Second round of chemo. Believe me when I say it took all I had to go back again, knowing how it was going to make me feel. I told Dr. H that my hair was starting to fall out and he said that it could be a good sign. (What???) It could mean that my body was so sensitive to the chemo that it was killing everything, including the cancer. I was scheduled for an x-ray on January 4 to see if that was true. Oh, and I went through the same side-effects as the first time, only they came on quicker and some were more intense, like the breathing fire and body aches. Jake and Makayla came in for a whole week to celebrate Christmas through New Year’s Day with us. I had vacation time available from work, so I took that time off. We didn’t do much celebrating, but I was so glad they were here. Makayla spent a lot of time just sitting with me and chatting or watching television (and laughing with me/at me as Mary Jane was there too), while my boys hung out playing X-Box together. We all played games and laughed a lot. No sweeter sound than hearing my boys laughing together. I was so glad they were here. After they left, I had a hard time making myself put away the Christmas decorations. I was seriously afraid that I might not ever see them again. About a week after I normally take them down, I was having another pity party and Brian sternly said, “just put the damn things away, because you will see them in about 11 months when you drag them back out again”. That’s all I needed to hear. Just someone to tell me I would live to see another Christmas.
January 11, 2018 – Third round of chemo. The x-ray I had the week before showed that the tumor and the lymph node were significantly smaller. Progress! This news helped me go through the chemo, yet again – third round. Same side-effects, but this time I felt like I could be dying. My body hurt so bad that I wouldn’t let anyone touch me. Brian or Ben would try to gently hug me or just lightly kiss my check, and there would be instant tears. No matter how I positioned myself, I was uncomfortable. My joints ached, my skin ached, my head ached. Mary Jane was here to assist, but there were times that I was pretty sure I was done living on this earth. Add to it the fact that, just about the time I started to feel a bit of relief, around 10 days after chemo, my eyelids started to swell. They got so bad that, by the end of each day, it hurt to keep them open because it felt like they were weighted down. The nurse called it Periorbital Edema. No treatment for it, just had to wait it out. CT Scan scheduled for January 25.
January 26, 2018 – There is a term for the time in between having a scan and seeing your doctor for the results. It’s called “scanxiety”, and Holy Cow – I sure had a bad case of it on this day. I was extremely fidgety and teary eyed and downright bitchy! Through the waiting, my husband was right there, holding my hand and being nervous with me. After what seemed like days, Dr. H walked into the exam room and asked, “how are you today?”, to which I replied, “I don’t know…how am I today?” He came back with, “well let’s go to my office and look at things on the big screen”. I almost couldn’t hear anything, because my heart was beating so loud in my ears. When we walked up to his computer and he pointed to the before chemo and after chemo images, I had to look at Brian for clarification, because I didn’t think I understood the words Dr. H had spoken. “The tumor is gone”. Gone? – GONE!” “And look here, the inflamed lymph node has considerably shrunk in size”. Dr. H looked at me and said, “I wasn’t sure I was doing right by you because this was such a harsh treatment, but it really worked!” Shock…silence…tears of joy, of hesitancy, of uncertainty. I literally just stood there like a statue with tears running down my face as the doc and my husband were jumping in to discuss the next steps. I truly would have been doing a happy dance, but when I heard the words, three more rounds of chemo and 30 rounds of radiation, followed by that Imfinzi word again, I just couldn’t muster it. I mean, I should have been shouting from the rooftops, “The tumor is gone – the tumor is gone!”, but all I could hear was, “more nausea, more pain, more headaches, more swelling… More… MORE!!! The oncology nurses and office staff were all smiling and congratulating me and I knew this was big, but why couldn’t I be as elated as everyone else?
January 30, 2018 – Met with Radiation Oncologist, Dr. M. After discussing the potential side effects, I was measured for my body mold. It doesn’t hurt to be measured for the mold, it just takes a while as they want to make sure the cancer will be targeted correctly by the radiation treatments. In my case, I would be positioned in the mold laying on my back. I was scheduled to receive 30 rounds of radiation, each weekday until finished.
February 4, 2018 – My 50th Birthday. Brian and several friends and family members planned a surprise party for me and I had a wonderful time! I even had a few glasses of whiskey to celebrate. It was so good to see smiling faces and to hear laughter. Everyone told me congratulations, and I thought they meant for making it to 50, but they were talking about the tumor being gone. Once I figured that out, I thought to myself that I really needed to find a way to be excited about it, but all I could think about was the fact that I would soon be starting more treatments and feeling like shit again.
February 8, 2018 – My first round of radiation at Dr. M’s and then on to Dr. H’s for my fourth round of chemo, a different less harsh drug, Carboplatin cocktailed with the same dose of Alimta that I had been getting. I also had the same anti-nausea drugs and steroid administered via IV, but because the Carboplatin was presented as a “smaller gun”, I didn’t have to have the pre or post IV, which was a nice change. One of the down sides of having radiation at the same time as chemo is that I had to go in to Dr. H’s office the day after chemo to get the Neulasta (the white cell builder) as a shot because it was unknown how the box I had been getting would react to the radiation. Wow, that shot was painful and by the day after chemo I was feeling pretty rough, making it difficult to drive. So thankful it was only a short trip to make.
Side Note: The radiation treatments – each day I went, I arrived about 10 minutes prior to my 9:00 a.m. appointment time so that I could change into a hospital gown and be ready when it was my turn. The technicians called me into the radiation room, which housed a very large machine that looked similar to a CT scan, but with more equipment surrounding the bed (more like a slab). The technicians would make sure I was positioned in my mold in exactly the same pose each day, using tiny rulers, lights and low dose x-rays to line me up to the targeted spots where I would be hit with the radiation beams. Getting into position every day took longer than the actual treatment and I was usually in and out within 30 minutes, except on Mondays, which is when I met with Dr. M to discuss questions and/or concerns. When I returned home each morning after the treatment, I made sure to eat breakfast right away because I would get pretty nauseous around 10:30 a.m. and that would continue for the rest of the day, every day.
February 19, 2018 – I was still having a very hard time being thankful that the tumor was gone and that the radiation seemed to be shrinking the lymph node. I researched and found a cancer support center in my area. I met with a counselor on February 26 and she signed me up for weekly group meetings to begin the week after my next chemo treatment.
March 1, 2018 – Day 16 of radiation and round five of chemo. Another Neulasta shot the day after chemo and then roughly three days of such intense body aches and swelling that it hurt to sit, stand, lay down or be touched by anything or anybody. The Carboplatin was less severe than the Cisplatin, in regard to side effects, but having chemo and radiation at the same time was not a walk in the park. I began to experience a profound exhaustion that would land my butt on the couch several times a day, but try as I might, I just couldn’t fall asleep, and would inevitably get up and go back to my make-shift desk on the dining room table to work. The weekends brought some relief from the effects of the radiation, and I looked forward to Fridays even more than usual for that reason.
March 6, 2018 – I attended my first support group meeting. There were six of us, a counselor and a student counselor present. All of us had different forms of cancer and were in different stages of treatment. Everyone was warm and friendly and so easy to talk to about feelings and symptoms. No judgement, just love and compassion for a neighbor going through this horrible disease. Even though I have an amazing support group of family, friends and co-workers, those in this meeting were people I could talk to about anything, cancer related and beyond. I was scheduled to attend every Tuesday that I felt up to it.
March 21, 2018 – Day 30 of radiation. My final treatment! Dr. M, the radiation techs and the ladies in the office all signed a “Certificate of Completion” and wished me well and told me they hoped to never see me again. Those words brought tears of joy to my eyes as I bid them the same parting sentiment.
March 22, 2018 – Round 6 of chemo – THE LAST ONE!!! We met with Dr. H before the infusion and discussed the next plan of action. A CT scan and then on to Imfinzi, the new Immunotherapy drug that, while I was undergoing chemo and radiation, had finally been approved by the FDA for treatment of my type of Lung Cancer. I would be among the first people to use it and was scheduled to begin mid-April. As Dr. H led us out of the exam room to the infusion room, he handed me some paperwork about Imfinzi (aka Durvalumab), which I began to read as my chemo was being administered that final time. This was no light reading at all. It mostly talked about how bad the side effects could be, death being one of them. I sat there wondering if it was worth taking it. I had to really focus on calming my anxiety that day, just so I could sit still in that chair as those bags of potentially lifesaving fluids were administered. When the nurse came over and unhooked me from the IV, everyone congratulated me on my last chemo. I was smiling on the outside, but shaking like a leaf on the inside, unable to be as excited as I should have been.
The Great Debate…
March 23, 2018 – I was feeling the effects of the treatment and they were pretty rough this last time. Looking back, I believe it was probably worse because of the weight of the decision I had to make about the Imfinzi. I texted a friend of mine, Allen, and told him of my uncertainty about starting this new immunotherapy drug. He asked me questions about what I knew from the information Dr. H had given me. I filled him in on everything and he told me he would research it and let me know what he found. I felt somewhat better, just knowing that someone on the outside of my immediate circle was checking this stuff out.
March 26, 2018 – I was having panic attacks off and on all day and couldn’t stay focused on work at all. I was scared of hearing bad results on my upcoming CT Scan and I was really worked up about whether or not to start the Imfinzi infusions. After shutting down my work laptop for the day, I left the house and went for a drive, stopping at a nearby park that overlooks the Meramec river. I sat there for an hour, just watching the water flow by. I called my friend, Mike, who has experience with helping me calm down when I have anxiety attacks. He let me voice all of my fears and then he told me to get a second opinion, at least to hear what another professional had to say about it. When I got home that afternoon, I received a text from Allen with pages and pages of information about the clinical trials of Imfinzi that he had found on the internet. At the end of the text, he told me to get a second opinion. I was beginning to see a pattern here.
March 27, 2018 – Support group discussion about Imfinzi. I presented the information I received from Dr. H about the possible side effects Imfinzi could have. They unanimously suggested that I get a second opinion as they could tell by my voice shaking and my legs bouncing uncontrollably how upset and uncertain I was. That evening Brian contacted a friend whose wife is a nurse at different cancer center. Within a couple of days, I had an appointment with Dr. M-2, an oncologist at her center, to discuss my concerns.
March 28, 2018 – Brian and I met with Dr. H to discuss Imfinzi in greater detail and to let him know that I was seeking a second opinion. He was 100% on board with me talking to someone else to make sure I was making the right choice for me. I’m pretty sure what Dr. H said next was the deciding factor for me. He said, “Imfinzi is now in the medical books as the next step after chemo and radiation for your type of lung cancer. If you didn’t receive your diagnosis until after Imfinzi had been made a protocol, you wouldn’t have even questioned it, because you took the chemo and radiation without much thought as it has been a known protocol for a long time”. Dr. H also strongly felt that I would benefit from some time off work. He said it would give me time to digest everything that had been going on for the last several months and that I needed to work on calming my nerves and alleviating as much stress as possible. Together we felt the time off could help me make the best decision regarding further treatment. I spoke to my boss the next day and, on March 30, 2018, I went on short term disability leave with no end date set.
April 11, 2018 – Scanxiety! I had a CT scan and then went straight to Dr. H’s office to go over the results. Wow! No Tumor! No Enlarged Lymph Gland! Scan showed ALL CLEAR! Oh, I found a way to be super excited that day! Dr. H said “you really made me think on this one. I also wondered if I was being a good doctor, with everything I put you through.” My eyes filled with tears of joy and I was so ecstatically happy that I don’t recall my exact words, but I’m pretty sure they were, “you are not a good doctor, you are a great doctor” and I gave him a big hug! Cancer free! I am once again Kathy with a “K”!
April 16, 2018 – We met with Dr. M-2 for a second opinion and, after looking at all of my test results and treatment plan, he said “Yes, take it!”. He said I looked good and my scans looked good. He had a small concern about the six rounds of Alimta that Dr. H had given me, as it is known to cause inflammation of the lungs when given along with radiation, but thus far I had no signs or symptoms of that. He said to try it and, if it didn’t work out for me, I could always stop taking it. His recommendation, coupled with the comments from Dr. H, gave me the tools I needed to say yes to Imfinzi.
Putting this chapter of my life out there for all to see has taken awhile to compile. Though it seems like a pretty long read, it is merely a blip on the radar screen, and I haven’t even begun to share my Imfinzi experience. That will be the topic of my next post.
