Yes, that hurts.
Standard procedure here is to take x-rays to make sure nothing is structurally amiss.
Two days later the urgent care doc calls and says, “The radiologist reviewed your x-ray. The shoulder looks OK, but there is another problem.”
“What might that be?” I asked.
“There is a nodule in your upper right lung.”
“A nodule? What the hell is a nodule?”
“It’s a spot. A growth. A mass.”
“There’s a mass? In my lung? Is it cancer?”
“Usually not, but you’ll need to have it checked out right away.”
“Define ‘usually not’ please.”
“There are many factors, typically less than half are malignant. Do you smoke?”
“I used to.”
“For how long?”
“35 years.”
There’s a slight pause. I can just tell the doc is trying to formulate the right words. “Oh. Well that changes things considerably. I recommend contacting your doctor. Today if possible. Given the size and location of the growth, your age and past history, this could be extremely serious. But, it could also be nothing to be alarmed about.”
He gave me a few more details before we hung up. A 12mm growth, in an upper lobe of the lung. His final words were, “Don’t freak out, but get it checked. Now.”
Don’t. Freak. Out. What the hell do you expect someone that just heard, “there is a growth in your lung” to do?
Of course I freaked out. My next step was turing to the Internet to learn more.
That was a bad idea.
Did you know there are “calculators” out there on the Interwebs that after you enter various details of your “findings” it will spit out a probability of having a malignant tumor?
The number I got back was 86%.
Here’s the Mayo Clinic site telling me that there’s an 86% chance this thing in my lung is cancer. The Mayo Clinic. It’s not like we’re talking “Joe’s FREE Uber-cool Malignancy Calculator App” here.
The doc’s last words, “Don’t freak out” were of no help. A reputable web site telling me the odds are overwhelming that it’s cancer. Another site says the odds are 75%. Another says “Greater than 60%” None of these odds are exactly pleasing to the ear. Multiple sites say the average five-year survival rate of upper lobe lung cancers with tumors the size of mine is 9%.
Trust me, you hear and read these things and you WILL freak out.
Over the next couple of days a flurry of activity takes place. A full chest x-ray confirms the ‘nodule’ – now labeled a “suspicious growth”. That was a Friday, a CT scan is scheduled for Monday. Now I have all weekend to “not freak out” about some unknown thing taking up residence in my right lung.
I read things like, “prognosis is poor.” I rerun those calculators, hoping for different results. I try to figure out how to tell my kids about this. I hide some things I’m reading from my wife, and I never hide ANYTHING from her.
Tuesday morning I have the CT scan and the tech tells me it will take 24 – 48 hours to be reviewed. Great, another two days lying awake in bed, wondering if cancer cells are coursing through my body.
Fortunately, I’ve got some amazing doctors, and they knew that I was really struggling with all the unknowns surrounding this. They put a rush on the CT scan results.
Last night I got the call.
“The tumor is benign. We can’t be 100% sure without a biopsy, but based on what the CT shows we can say with 98% confidence that it is not malignant. It’s a hamartoma, not a malignant tumor. ”
“Overwhelming relief” doesn’t describe the feeling hearing that news. After I hung up the phone I broke down into a blubbering mess.
For six days I was convinced that I was about to enter a battle with lung cancer that in all likelihood would not end well. It sucked. It was miserable. Those six days were some of the longest, most torturous days of my life.
It’s all my own fault. I owe it all to the stupidest habit in the world — smoking.
I’m lucky that this tumor in my chest is benign. I was lucky to survive a heart attack that kills most people.
I’ve got to stop pressing my luck, as it’s bound to run out some day.
Warning: preachy rant forthcoming
I started smoking when I was 16. Why? Who knows. Why does anyone start smoking? To fit in with the “cool kids” I suppose. To seem more “adult.” Because, “I won’t get addicted to cigarettes, that only happens to weak people.” Because I was 16 and too young, dumb, ignorant and invincible to worry about the long-term effects of smoking. Who worries about what will happen in their 50s when they are 16 years old?
Whatever the reason, I started smoking and I didn’t stop for good until two years ago when I had a heart attack. And while I’d like to blame genetics for that little life-altering-stare-death-in-the-face event, fact is smoking was a huge contributor to the heart attack, of that there is zero question. And despite that heart attack, I’ve slipped up and had a few smokes since then.
How fucking stupid is that??
I *know* how hard it is to quit smoking. Believe me, I tried and tried and tried. Having a heart attack at 51 is a hell of a motivator, but even with that, quitting is hard.
For the love of everything, if you smoke or know someone that does, you have GOT to quit and help your friends quit. I’m about to turn into “that guy”. The dreaded ex-smoker that preaches the evils of smoking to anyone that will listen, and even to those that won’t.
Yep, that guy. Deal with it.
Smoking is the single stupidest thing you can do to your body. So stop it. Now. Easier said than done, I know. But there’s help out there. There are support groups, there are medicines that can help. Talk to your doctor. Talk to your family. A counselor. Talk to someone that can help you quit. You don’t have to do this alone.
You’re out at a bar and it’s 2:00am and you want a smoke? Call me, I’ll talk you out of it. My number is 480-235-4447. I’m serious, call any time and I’ll happily read you my CT scan report; the one that says thanks to years of smoking I now have some beginning signs of emphysema. I’ll tell you about the now calcified hunk of shit in my lungs–that while luckily isn’t cancerous–will be in there forever. I’ll tell you about how now I get to have a chest CT scan every year to see if any new nodules, or cancer, have popped up.
Please, don’t wait to quit until you have a heart attack, or some spot on an x-ray shows up that could very well be something that will kill you.
I got lucky. Six days of pure hell wondering if you’ve got a cancerous tumor in your lung sucks, but that’s nothing compared to months of surgery, chemo and radiation all in what is most likely a dismal attempt to prolong your life while you waste away with cancer literally eating you alive from the inside, killing you. Dead. Forever.
You’ve got to quit smoking, now. Please. You can do it.
Snuff out the smokes, not your life.
Photo credit: Curtis Perry via Flickr. CC Licensed.
Thank god you’re well! You’re a great guy.
Great article!!!!
I will once again try to stop smoking. I will post this on my Facebook page with results updated daily. Let see if that helps. Thanks.
Jay, I am so happy you are on the other side of this and it wasn’t cancer.
I smoked for years too…I quit when I was 27 when my son, Phillip, was born. He saved my life. I had tried to quit many times…I was smoking 3 packs a day and could barely breath. I constantly had health issues.
When I was 40…life got hard, my marriage was sinking, my son was on drugs….I lit one up…then I began sneaking them (from whom? I don’t know). Then I would justify it by saying, I will just have one on the way home from work. Within a week, I was back to 3 packs a day. My friends were shocked, my husband was shocked and my kids were shocked.
For me getting away from smoking was like chewing off my own leg because I knew I was stuck in a bear trap and yet I felt it wasn’t possible to quit. I smoked for two years before I got off of them again. I found nicotine gum. I chewed it for another 3 years and then I quit.
Two years ago, at 49 years old, I came up with asthma. Now I take meds to help me breath. I carry an inhaler with me all the time.
Three of my five kids also smoked. Our oldest Marie, has quit for up to two years and then gone back to them. Phillip who died in a car accident in 2012 smoked until the end and Samuel who is 22 now. Samuel is off of them for about 3 months now. I want more than anything for him to stay off of them.
Thank you for writing this post. It is a great post and maybe it will make someone think before they light up another one. I read that each time you take a drag you pop some of the little air pockets in your lungs….you have millions of the little critters but over the years…this break down is what causes emphasema.
Again, so happy you are over that…and I think it is interesting that God, the Universe, whatever you call it, created a situation where you needed that x-ray in the first place. Someone is watching out for you Jay Thompson.
-Michelle Shelton
I’m glad you quit again, Michelle. I too quit at 27 (or 28). For many years before that I was always quiting for a week, a month or a few months at a time. It amazed me how I would have 1 cigarette at a party on Friday night and by the next Friday I’d be back up to a pack a day. It took years for me to learn that I couldn’t have even 1 cigarette.
[I’m so sorry about your son. Life doesn’t get worse than that for a parent.]
John….thank you for your kind words. It is so true that just one smoke and I am right back on them. I wouldn’t dream of doing it now. Plus it stinks and everything stinks when I smoke. I would think it would affect business….some people simply hate it and if I was their realtor and showed up smelling like smoke…I would think it could be a deal killer.
Brad…I know you didn’t ask me…I can tell you the gum worked for me very well. I didn’t like it at first….it did work and I was able to quit that way….don’t miss them (much) now and it has been 7 or 8 years
Thanks Michelle! I was looking at those today.
Thanks Jay. I have my date set and planning on quiting soon, however I said that thousands of times before and it’s definitely a love / hate relationship. The excuses that I use to continue smoking; such as I have clients tomorrow and don’t want to be out of it, is getting terribly old. Aside from getting the shit scared out of you, how did you quit? Cold turkey? Patches?
Thanks for preaching, it’s appreciated more then you know.
Brad Daniels
Cold turkey, Brad. I’ve tried it all in the past – patches, gum, tapering off. Cold turkey seems to work the best for me, but everyone is different. I think if I had the need to quit again, I’d try e-cigs/vaping, hearing that is working for lots of folks.
My great way to quit smoking after 37 years of smoking was to have a Widowmaker Heart attack(complete blockage of the Left Anterior Descending Artery) 4 days after my 52nd birthday…..Nothing like looking up at the young emergency room nurse and have her reassuringly tell you “You’ll be fine” and know that she is lying!!! Seriously, quit now!!! I was/am really lucky.
if you cant quit the nicotine, go to e-cigs or vapors….if i weren’t a recovering nicotine addict, I would be all over those. It’s not the nicotine, it’s the tars in the smokes….You can do this. Two years 51 days later, I really rarely get the cravings….
Jay I admire you in so many ways – I have made several attempts to quit – without success – I know it’s time I have already started feeling the affects of my 30 years of abuse on my body – your story makes me know how important it is that I succeed – wish me luck to finally succeed – my family will be thankful
You CAN do it Thesa. It sucks, it’s hard, and it’s zero fun. But it’s really, really important.
I quit at age 28 after 10 years of smoking, newly married my husband and I quit together. He used the patch (1998 version) but we could not afford it for 2 people so I did “mind over matter”. I was an angry non-smoker for a couple years but the more time that went by, and the more socially unacceptable smoking has become since, I am so glad we quit when we did. Now 15 years later, it is as if those years of smoking never happened, my body has recovered. No matter your age you should quit, but it is especially important to reach the young people before or as they start to experiment, so they don’t even get started. Thanks for sharing your story, I will pass it on!!
I quit 20 years ago after smoking for 27 years. I know I am still at risk for various cancers and cardiac events. Still, it is always best to quit, no matter how long you smoked, and, of course, better yet if you never start in the first place.
I used the step- down nicotine patches to get me through the worst of the withdrawal symptoms.
Be. That. Guy.
Be that guy every day, Jay… even if it is only one person whose mind you change, whose life you “save”… be that guy every chance you get. Be the guy who keeps that one person from having to live with the eternal mind fuck that is heart disease &/or any of its comorbidities.
Your reach, you as an inspiration to get out & give life a run for its money and a big o’ FU to CVD… it reaches far beyond the PNW, maybe even all the way to the opposite corner of the continent.
Love ya, Man!