That’s my brain. An MRI of my brain was performed on Wednesday to determine if my lung cancer has spread there. I took the disc home with me and spent an hour or so going through the images looking for any spot that looks slightly wrong. Thankfully, even in my paranoia, I couldn’t find any.
This Wednesday, I’ll submit to the last in the battery of tests to determine the stage and the recommended treatment plan. The final test is EBUS, or Endobronchial Ultrasound Bronchoscopy. Although I have to be at the hospital at 6am for a 7:30 procedure, I’ll take Wednesday off, as I figure I’ll be a bit out of sorts all day.
Then on Friday afternoon, I have the follow up appointment with the oncologist to go over all the test results and pathology reports, get the official stage and diagnosis, and hear the course of treatment that the lung cancer team at Holy Cross Hospital in Ft. Lauderdale have devised.
Then I have big decisions to make.
We believe we caught this early. The preliminary results haven’t turned up any tumors elsewhere or evidence that the cancer has spread. If that’s the case, the standard “treatment” is major surgery. In my case, that means removing the lower lobe of my left lung, with a hospital stay of a week.
Now we go for the second opinions and explore alternative treatments too.
For instance, the surgeon I met with at Holy Cross explained that even with the robotic surgeries available now, the surgeon must still make a larger incision to remove the lobe, saying it wouldn’t fit through the tiny incisions used for the robotic surgery. However, some research tells me that’s not necessarily the case.
The Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa is widely regarded as one of the best cancer treatment centers in the state, and they tell a different story. We’ll likely set up an appointment for a consultation with them.
And then there’s the idea of foregoing the surgery, and opting for alternative treatment like Proton Therapy that the University of Florida is having great results with.
And then there’s the cannabis cure. Doctors won’t even discuss it because they don’t have the clinical research. They don’t have clinical research because cannabis is still classified as a Schedule 1 narcotic, meaning it has no medicinal value at all. This is a sham and a travesty, and makes me wonder how much of the rest of what they’re telling me is bullshit.
Sadly, I live in Florida, so attempting to treat my cancer with cannabis oil is illegal. But I may try it nonetheless.
Read about Rick Simpson and his journey to discovering the curative qualities of cannabis oil.
Lots more to come. I promise to keep you updated here.
Thanks for your support!
Nicole…please don’t screw around with quackery. Please don’t fall into the talk of the Great Pharma Conspiracy, or the Budwig Protocol, or any other horses#!t that you’ll find anywhere on some Guy’s Web Site. Clinical trials exist for a reason, and it’s to test treatments under a controlled environment. Moffitt is one of the best cancer centers around. Getting a second opinion from them is definitely a good idea. But Some Guy’s Web Site Who Is Selling Books is not a reliable source. When you see randomized, or even open label clinical trials, with peer-reviewed papers, then you can look at cannabis oil. These people prey on cancer patients for whom surgery is terrifying and chemo even more so.
My husband had muscle-invasive bladder cancer and he said he would rather die than have surgery. He finally agreed to chemo and he sailed through it pretty easily. And guess what — his bladder had no evidence of tumor anymore. (He has since died of other causes unrelated to cancer.)
I work in clinical research, on oncology trials. I know how the sausage is made. Anecdote is not data and claims are not research.
The chances are good that if there is no evidence of cancer elsewhere, you can have surgery and be done with it. They will give you breathing exercises to do to increase the capacity of the remaining part of the My mother had NSCLC and had surgery and lived another 20 years, finally dying of COPD at age 85 after taking up smoking after cancer surgery. You may be prescribed chemo as a precaution.
This is a good article by an oncologist at Dana-Farber about why proton therapy is not currently the standard of care:
I’m a major proponent of marijuana legalization but I would NOT trust my life to it! Perhaps as an additional treatment – can you believe marijuana is even illegal? It’s insane.
wish you a speedy recovering and a clean bill of health…