Wednesday, December 16, 2009

mementos

this is me:






as i've told you before, and you can plainly see, my lungs are HUGE.


i was also able to get a copy of my ct scan, where you can see the tumor much better.



those two large black circles are my lungs. the view here is if you had cut off the top of my torso and were looking down at my lungs. the white penny-sized dot on the left black circle is the tumor on my lung. it is at the very top of my left lung, where my collar bone meets my ribs.

kinda cool, huh? except for the whole tumor part.

out.
- L

Monday, December 7, 2009

my, what large LUNGS you have!

had my first appointment with the pulmonary doctor on friday. her first comment to me, after reviewing my xray and CT scan, were how beautiful my lungs are. apparently mine are just HUGE.

the doctor talked to me for a while about what may have caused the tumor on my lung. she asked about my smoking history and family history. she said it could have been caused by an infection that i didn't even know i had, like valley fever. so, to test if that is the cause, she ran some blood tests.




in three months i will have another scan to see if the tumor grew. if it did, my doctor will order a biopsy. that's where they take a needle and stab me in the chest with it to cut out a piece of the tumor. as you might expect, i'm really hoping that is not necessary.

i did get to see the results of my scan on screen. the tumor is on the upper part of my left lung, almost at the tip. it's about the size of a penny.

out.

- L