Finally introducing myself

[Kevin1]

Hello all, thank you for all the great information and community love you all share. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to write. I am a 47 year old mom of a 6 year old beautiful son who is the reason I AM A CANCER THRIVER. I had my one and only son at age 40, in 2011, and in 2012 I started coughing so badly I was BARKING and wetting myself. Went through a few doctors that kept prescribing antibiotics and said it was bronchitis. I just knew it wasn't getting better and after many chest X-rays that showed nothing, I was sent to many specialists, urologist, cardiologist, allergist... I WISH I KNEW TO ASK FOR A CT SCAN. It turns out that the whole time we were messing around, a CT scan would have revealed the culprit growing larger and larger and wrapped around my pulmonary artery, thereby not showing up on X-Ray, was a 7cm stage3 squamous cell tumor. The surgeon didn't want to operate because of the location, so I did well on chemo and radiation, tumor shrank and 3 affected lymph nodes shrank. But then on Mother's Day 2014, I had a seizure and was unconscious for days in the hospital and was told I had a lesion on my right temporal lobe. We decided to have cyberknife and that was working very well, it was shrinking up. But in January 2015 it had grown back, and was surgically removed. I had a right temporal lobectomy. There were 3 blood vessels attached to the tumor and unfortunately the one the surgeon had to keep attached in my brain, was the only one of them that had cancer cells on it. So he closed me back up with cancer cells still in there and after much discussing I had 3 more treatments of cyberknife over 3 consecutive days with a much lower does so as not to hurt me. My doctor had never done repeated cyberknife to the same tiny area before but I am so thankful he did. I am doing wonderfully, besides some fatigue and mood swings - and getting through some of that and how I was given a bad combination of medications and wound up back in the hospital, from seizures and hallucinations, I could have very well died from the depression meds they gave me along with the other meds I was taking, but I'll post that another time. I wanted to let you know YOU CAN BEAT CANCER, THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE! I have learned the hard way, on my own, that doctors know nothing about nutrition and the SUGAR I was given each and every time I had a treatment is evidence of that. There were some mistakes made, but I'm going to live in spite of them. My little boy Kevin needs his mom! Thank you for reading my long post, have a wonderful day!

[Denzie Moderator Volunteer]

Welcome to FtB board! You've had some frightening experiences and glad to read that they've led you here to share your story of thriving.

Oncologists have enough to study up on and, it's my personal belief, all patients should be referred to a nutritionist who specializes in oncology patients.

I look forward to reading more from you.

[PegD]

Welcome! Glad to hear you are a 5+ year survivor. We look forward to hearing more from you.

[Kevin1 in reply to PegD]

Thank you PegD. I'm not sure when you start counting. I'm quite sure I was misdiagnosed in 2012 when I spent months and months going back and forth to many doctors with "bronchitis." Then when diagnosed in April 2013 with NSCL, kicked it out of my lungs, but meta to brain May of 2014. The brain tumor grew back and was surgically removed in January 2015. ALL GOOD since then, so when DO I start counting? I'm really not sure and was going to ask you all that question. THANK YOU!

[FtB_Peggy]

Kevin1,

Thank you for telling your story (partially) to our community. It is always inspiring to hear what members here have overcome. I am so very glad you have your beautiful son to brighten each hour of each day. Keep up the good fight!

[scifiknitter Blogger]

Kevin1,

Thank you for introducing yourself. What a challenging treatment history you have had! You have survived a lot - you will bring hope to many that we can get through these difficult treatments and thrive.

Anita