I had built up a pretty good following of my posts until late February. While I have no intention on being too personal, in this case I have to explain my sudden absence from the posting seen. What no one knows is that for the last year I haven't felt too great. Every day I got a slight fever and had nightly sweats. None of my doctors could figure it out and none were very concerned. Finally after a year of this I decided to move forward and see someone new to get fresh look and a third opinion. I was told that the correct doctor to see was an infectious disease guy. My daughter, an ER doctor recommended a specialist in Albany, NY and I saw him in early March.
What a ID guy does is do a ridiculous amount of tests, scans, and x-rays. A few months earlier my gastroenterologist had done a CAT scan of my pancreas and seen something he suggested I follow up on. Net, net, the chest X-ray showed what looked like lung cancer. After seeing a thoracic surgeon at Albany Med and having two surgeries I was diagnosed and confirmed with Stage 4 metastatic lung cancer. It had also spread to my spine. I was told that there was no fix but we could stop it from spreading with radiation (which I finished a week ago) and chemotherapy once every 21 day (for the rest of my life).
So that's the deal. I won't talk or post about it again but anyone who has followed my posts deserved to know why I disappeared late February. Understand that I plan on being around for a long time. I have a great life and plan on living it to the fullest. When you get sick you surround yourself with friends and family and I have an abundance of both. I'm a very lucky guy. My older sister passed away 3 years ago from pancreatic cancer (at age 60) and the most important thing I took away from that is a reminder to live my life to the fullest. I plan on doing just that. You might want to do the same.
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