Dear Readers,
As I take my 6-month break from the Sun Day Newspaper, I want to share my health story that has taken place over the past year.
A year ago, I had an incident that took me to the emergency room where they did an x-ray of my left lung showing a tumor. I was told to see a doctor immediately. This is my story; to protect the names of all physicians that were seen I will not reveal their names. Doctor #1, who had never seen me before, told me she thought I had cancer of the left lung, which had metastasized to the brain. She wanted me to have lung surgery right away so the tumor would not spread; this I refused. She ordered a CT scan of the lung and one of the brain. She then sent me to doctor #2, a neurologist who said I passed inspection. Doctor #3 was a pulmonologist. This doctor did not want to do surgery but wanted me to have a biopsy. I asked him what risks were involved and he said there were several – a collapsed lung, bleeding, and if cancer, a chance to spread it. I told him I did not like the options. After much discussion, I decided to wait toward the end of the year in Florida to have another scan and see if there was any growth. The scan was done the end of November. Then, a PET scan was ordered which showed the cancer but it had not spread.
I was then told by doctor #4 that if I didn’t get to an oncologist and have chemo, I probably had 4 to 6 months to live. The oncologist agreed it was cancer and she wanted me to have a biopsy. I asked her why she wanted this if she already knew it was cancer. Her answer was so they could know what kind of chemo to give me. When I told her I would not have chemo, I was completely on my own. I had refused the doctor’s poison.
