Finished With All Treatments!

On Wednesday March 25 I completed my last radiation treatment. It has been almost exactly six months since my surgery. During this time I had major surgery to remove the upper right lobe of my lung, along with the tumor, had 12 weeks of chemotherapy, and had 30 radiation treatments. In total, during the last 180 day, more that 90 days have included at least one test, treatment, doctor's appointment, or some other interaction with the medical community. While I appreciate the skill and dedication of the many medical professionals who have worked with me over the past six months, I am looking forward to seeing much less of them in the weeks ahead.

It really feels great to reach this milestone. Sharon and I celebrated with a special dinner this evening. We talked about how scary the whole process seemed six months ago. We were not sure we knew how or would be able to get through it. I won't say it has been easy, but with God's help and support, prayers, and the encouragement from all of you, we made it. There are some lingering physical effects from surgery, chemo, and radiation that I am still dealing with, but for the most part I can say that I am back to normal.

I have a follow-up visit with my oncologists in two weeks. Sometime in April I will have a CT Scan that will serve as a new "base line" for future scans. This is needed because surgery and radiation both cause scar tissue and other physical changes that will show up on future scans. There is no clear way to determine that lung cancer has been "cured". Going forward, frequent CT scans will serve as a way to know that no new cancer is present. While the frequency of scans will decrease in the coming years, I will have scans for the rest of my life to confirm that there is no new cancer growth.