I'm a 44 year old female. I recently went to my doctor as I was having symptoms such as extreme fatigue, shortness of breath and just generally feeling under the weather - for full disclosure I'm an unpaid carer to my adult child who has both physical and learning difficulties and doesn't sleep well so I'm on the go from 3.30am to 9pm daily. I have no respite as they won't accept another carer so I'm on my own with them 24/7 and doing all the manual handling etc.
I thought perhaps I was anaemic or my heart issues that I'd had years previously had finally started to make my heart get a bit tired as the cardiologist had predicted it would and I would need a heart ablation done. Failing either of those two being the case then I thought it would be complete and utter burnout given the amount of stress I'm under being a carer, I recently got divorced (split 3 years ago but divorce was last year) and my parent was diagnosed with end stage lung cancer at the end of last year so I've a lot on my plate.
I had my blood tests and ECG on Wednesday 30th April, on Thursday 1st May the doctor called to tell me all my blood work was fine but my ECG showed my heart rate to be a bit too low. She decided to put in a referral for me to have another 24 hour holter monitor and she put in a referral to the Rapid Cancer Diagnostic Service (RCDS) not because she thought it would show anything but she just wanted to be on the safe side to rule out everything.
On Friday 2nd May RCDS called me to offer me an appointment on Monday 5th May RCDS doctor and have a CT scan with contrast done of my neck, chest and pelvis. I had my scan at 11.40am.
At 3.07pm my phone rang & it was the RCDS I assumed something had gone wrong with the CT (blurry, not clear enough etc) and would need to be repeated - my scan was only just over 3 hours since my scan they surely couldn't have results already?!
He said "I'm so sorry it's bad news" and proceeded to tell me they found 4.9cm x 4.3cm x 3.2cm tumour in apex of right lung and also a few 14mm lymph nodes affected in upper lung near the tumour. Not elsewhere in body that was scanned from neck to groin
Provisional Staging: T2b N1 M0
Provisional diagnosis: Primary bronchiogenic carcinoma
I'm having a full lung function test on Wednesday and I'm meeting the respiratory medicine specialists on Friday to discuss everything. I'm awaiting a date for my PET-CT scan. A biopsy was mentioned as well but I'm unsure when this will be done.
It's been such a whirlwind of emotions since Monday. I know I don't have a firm cancer diagnosis yet but they seem very certain and I'm assuming they wouldn't be telling me what they have without being almost 100% on it being cancer?
