Don't really get the gist of blogs so will just write and hope for the best :)
(Lung Cancer) I'd been feeling low on energy for a few months but put it down to me working 2 jobs 7 days a week and the fact I was nearing the dreaded menopausal age. I was coughing a lot and again I dismissed it to overusing my voice in both my jobs (I was a swimming teacher and a learning support assistant) plus having that frowned upon habit of dare I mention it, smoking. I was losing weight but nothing extreme and I've always been the runt of the family so it didn't ring any alarm bells. It wasn't until I was finding even the smallest task unmanageable that I decided it was time to visit the doctors, that was towards the end of 2009. Anyway she examined me, all the usual stuff plus took some blood to check some hormone levels, asked if I was stressed about anything etc, etc. She phoned me a few days later to say that the blood results confirmed that I was in fact going through the menopause. All that fuss about nothing I thought. The tiredness didn't go away and although I didn't as a rule weigh myself on a regular basis I knew I was still losing weight as I had to buy a belt to keep my trousers up, well I would never have lived it down if they had fell down in front of the youngsters I worked with, come to think of it I doubt my work colleagues would have let me live it down haha. I got a bit of a rude awakening one morning when I was coughing my guts up and thinking yet again that I really needed to give up the fags, my phlegm had streaks of blood in it. I didn't go rushing to the doctors but all that day it was playing on my mind. It wasn't until a couple of weeks later that I finally phoned the doctors, she asked me to go down that morning. She checked me over and felt I had a chest infection so was given antibiotics and advice on giving up smoking. After a few days of taking the medicine I wasn't any better, I felt bloody awful. I was falling asleep at the drop of a hat, my appetite had diminished to virtually nothing and I was coughing up blood almost all the time. Decided to take some time off work and go back to the docs. I was given stronger antibiotics and told if I was no better to go back on the Monday. My sister dragged me back on the Monday, my GP examined me and said I think you need to go to the casualty and sent me up with a letter. Now anybody who knows me knows I am one of those people that thinks if you can still walk and talk you shouldn't be using the casualty department but I didn't even argue, I just wanted to feel better and get back into my boring routine. I was sent for an x-ray and examined by quite a handsome young doctor, way to young for me but I was allowed to dream ;) My heart rate was very fast ( nothing to do with the dishy doctor) and something had showed on the x-ray but they wasn't sure if it was infection or a clot so they decided it was best to admit me. They needed to weigh me to give me a blood thinner just in case it was a clot and it wasn't until then that I started to get worried, I was shocked to discover that I had lost a lot more weight than what I thought, I weighed just under 8 stone. After a few days in hospital I was given the good news that it wasn't a clot but they wanted to test my sputum for TB, this came back clear and I was diagnosed as having pneumonia. I was discharged about a week later and given a follow up appointment. By the time I went back I still wasn't feeling any better and there was no change on my x-ray so they decided to send me for a bronchoscopy, that came back inconclusive so had to have another one plus a P.E.T scan. Although cancer was at the back of my mind I brushed it off thinking I was over thinking and it still gave me a bit of a shock when they confirmed that I actually had lung cancer and would need surgery to remove the upper left lobe of my lung. It was the longest 6 weeks I had ever had to wait in my life to have surgery. I had something called a sarcomatoid pleomorphic lung cancer, T2 N0 M0. I did consider myself extremely fortunate but I had to give up my swimming teacher job, I am still employed as a learning support assistant but only part - time. I'm going to leave at that for the moment because my dog needs walking and I am desperate for a coffee. But I'll be back to bore you even more about my next journey :)
