The Cold That Wouldn't Go Away

My niece, a high school science teacher, frantically called me when her daughter, Lyanna's preschool was going to close two weeks before school let out. I was able to go and help keep Lyanna so that she and her husband didn't have to miss work. The cold that was going around the preschool came home with Lyanna and we all got it. Lyanna and her parents had it for a few days but I had it for a month.

My husband and I were supposed to go to Grand Cayman on a scuba diving trip and the cold was still hanging on so I went to see Dr. Sayed. She gave me medication to try to treat the symptoms and wished me a good trip. On the way out the door she turned around and reluctantly said that she would like for me to go and get a chest x-ray. We were leaving the next morning but I managed to get the x-ray on the way home.

That afternoon Dr. Sayed called me to say that the chest x-ray looked pretty good except for one place that looked like a small spot on my lung that could just be a shadow. We were able to set up a chest CT right after we returned from Cayman (their first available) and the spot was definitely not a shadow. Subsequent testing and showed that it was lung cancer but we had caught it very early.

Our local cancer center was able to verify the cancer and remove that lobe of my lung, eliminating the cancer.

That trip to Cayman was pretty emotional. I remember a dive along a beautiful reef with so many beautiful tropical fish swimming around me and I started crying, thinking that I might never see that beautiful underwater scenery again. I am lucky that I am a pretty positive person because I quickly followed that thought up with one of "then you should quit crying and enjoy the beauty."

Most lung cancers are caught when the patient has symptoms related to it and their chances of survival are 50-50. Because we caught it SO early the cancer eliminated all of the cancer and I didn't require any additional treatment. I still get CTs yearly to make sure that it doesn't come back and to catch it early if it does but I am still alive, kicking and staying very active.

All because of Lyanna's day care closing and my amazing doctor, Dr. Fatima Sayed.