hurry up and wait

One in three people will get cancer, and there are about 200 types of cancer. Everyone, at some time in their life, is affected by cancer. Although not the most common cancer, lung cancer is the most deadly. Of those diagnosed with lung cancer, 60% will be dead in a year and 70-80% will be dead in two years.

Lung cancer is divided into two categories, Small Cell Lung Cancer (SMLC) and Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC), based on differences in the onset and in treatment. I have NSCLC, which was revealed in a tumor biopsy. There are four types of NSCLC, all considered incurable:

•      adenocarcinoma;
•      bronchioloalveolar carcinoma;
•      large cell carcinoma;
•      squamous cell carcinoma.

About 30% of all NSCLC is squamous cell. It commonly metastasizes or spreads to the brain, liver, bone and other parts of the body. A PET Scan (positron emission tomography) showed that my squamous cell carcinoma may have set up shop in my spleen, various lymph nodes and bone marrow. Or not; the other locations may be lymphoma or some other type of cancer.

Lung cancer is usually treated, with or without surgery, by chemo and/or radiation therapy. Treatment strategy depends on staging or identifying the development progress of the cancer. Because it looks like mine has spread beyond my chest, I'm guessing it will be classified at Stage IV (advanced) but hoping it's a different type, which would mean that the lung cancer is less than Stage IV.

Although squamous cell lung cancer patients don't respond well to chemotherapy, they respond better to radiotherapy than patients with any other type of lung cancer. Chemotherapy is typically used only for symptom relief and, because I don't have much in the way of symptoms, I'm guessing radiation therapy will be recommended. 

My thoracic surgeon, Dr. Ken Evans, referred me to the BC Cancer Agency for staging, tests to determine if my other cancer/s are NSCLC or something else, and what my future holds in the realm of treatment.

I'll be dealing with an oncologist and other cancer specialists or, rather, they'll be dealing with me. Today they told me it usually takes two or three weeks for a referral to be processed. Yeah, yeah, hurry up and wait.