That cough and fever went away but still diagnosed with lung cancer

In December 2017 I tried  out a vaporizer.  As a tobacco smoking substitute, it tastes horrible.  Not doing it.  However also in December I felt like my cough went away, that extra cough I had and most of the lung noises with it went away.  I was still smoking roll-your-own tobacco.  Also sometime in December I stopped having fever-like sensations and the associated rise in temperature. That had been going on all year.   I had had a repeat lot of Clarithromycin by then but only for another week and this phenomenon of vanishing cough, I only noticed weeks after that.  I'd like to think they helped me kill off something that had been an added chronic burden but you couldn't say, after that delay.  I also had been taking 5mg Prednisone for quite a few months by then and was feeling much better for it and now quite mobile without any thought to an aid.  Anyway, the cough is gone for the most part and what is left is probably mild emphysema.  Although Dr Craig referred to it as is moderate emphysema.  I would love to say that all the lung nodules have gone away too but I had gotten really bad news about them from Dr Craig Wright {respiratory physician} and I haven't been game to write it, because either I have been in denial or it is just another misdiagnosis.  It is hard to believe especially now that the cough thing and fever have gone.  I will find out more when my next scan is done in March.  Here's the "cancer" story.

It is Dr Craig Wright's favoured opinion after looking at my most recent lung CT that I am "dying slowly" [his words, farking hell] of what will end up being adenocarcinoma.  At this stage he says if I had a biopsy it would show "atypical adenomatous hyperplasia" (premalignant) and he said it is always progressive which is hard for me to believe.  Always?  Anyway they can't do a biopsy while they are less than 9mm and mine are less than 2mm so he can't know for sure.  The only reason for rejecting a vasculitis diagnosis is the fact that my ANCA was equivocal (neither one way or the other) however two of those ANCA's have shown up over the past few years and I think it was the MPO one that has been positive aka "reactive" at least once.  I am not sure how having neutrophilia during a lot of 2017 if not still (I cannot get detailed blood test results from Dr Jo) has affected those readings since they are antibodies against your own neutrophils. (yes, autoimmune). He said I would die and I felt like this man was "pointing the bone" at me and I did not really believe in that power.  Ofcourse, when the cough and fever went away I was even more sure that this doctor has made a "wrong" diagnosis.  But I had to live with it until I could prove otherwise at the next CT scan.

Lung cancer has been in the foreground particularly in Jan's life but I socialised with the whole family too that seems to have had lung cancer go through the family like it was a virus.  First it was Sharon's Mum, then her Dad and now she has been given a few weeks to live, told just over a week ago and finally sent home from hospital to die at Jan's place.  Jan is taking on a real burden isn't she.  She said she would do the same for me but she has not been confronted with a dead body yet (aside from her Mum once).  Sharon's sister and good friend are also taking it in turns to be there but it is Jan's home.  Sharon's home has to be cleaned out and with her clothes stalls market produce, it has always been a mess but everyone else is taking care of that upstairs.  The Department of Housing said all her gear had to be gone within 2 weeks of her death.  Her son B has to move out because he was never on the lease.  Sharon has the money to pay for what she needs but she is not allowed to be given oxygen for free because she is a smoker.  I know they like to threaten smokers these days but being denied oxygen so you can stay in your own home for the dying process is wrong.  There is hardly any point her giving up smoking now because it won't make any difference to her death sentence. 

Sharon was only 35kg when she first went to hospital because she had not eaten properly for years.  It felt like hair in her throat and chest she was swallowing and getting stuck she said but she has also talked about glue on her skin and scalp so she got her head shaved to get rid of it last year.  Jan has always thought she had lost the plot when all that started up but the actual main cancer mass is in the throat and top of chest area making it hard to breathe.  Her breathlessness has escalated more quickly recently and the strain on her heart is likely to cause it to stop because of another condition they have reported that she did not know she had.  Of course she cried when she found out how short her life would be but she is not in any hurry to die.  She has no pain so why would she be?  It was the lack of pain that kept her in denial because her parents had plenty in the end and the morphine was turned up on both of them.  They even gave Sharon all her morphine for the "future" all in one go.  She is on a small dose now.  Jan says it keeps her calm they said.  She said it helps suppress the cough but they also put her on steroids which has made her hyper and unable to sleep so that is a weird treatment.  Sharon could have gone to Nambour Hospital or Caloundra Hospice but she did not want to go.  Her mother died in Nambour and her Father died in Dove House Hospice so you can't blame her.  I loaned her my walker and someone else has just offered a wheelchair and in comparison to her housebound life before, she is just getting more and more tired.  Visitors all the time and someone to sit up with and talk to during the night.  She would not be getting anywhere near the rest that she was getting at home before she went into hospital.  Her life was just as tiny as mine.  Not that I'm bored.  Everyone makes that decision for you, that your life is somehow not good enough but recently an ME lady died that I heard about.  Anne.

At the end of her life, Anne wrote: “If, hypothetically, the physical suffering could be taken out of the equation, I would have been able to live contentedly even though my life continued to be restricted to my small apartment and include very little activity. Unlike most people I could find such a tiny life bearable and even happy.” But Anne’s life was not tiny. She achieved more within her restricted circumstances than most people could. I am so sad that she is gone. Everyone who loved Anne is in my thoughts, and I hope that people with ME will remember her. She shared so much of her “tiny” life with us, and tried to make our lives better. Read More about Anne.

Anyway, I have been given strict instructions not to die within the next 5 years by Jan being the one that seems to bare a lot of the burden and worry from lung cancer in the life of her friends but not in her.  And I will let you know the results of my next scan in March 2018.