Reciprocity

Yes @catlover. Every 3 days and they don't work on weekends so that's gonna work out to 2 sessions per week. I'll be done then treatments in early Sept.

-4

Went to the mapping appointment today. It wasn't that long, at least the time I was actually in the room where they do it. Maybe a half hour or so. The time spent at the registration desk then waiting to be called in was longer, as you might expect with anything medical. They had me lay flat on a hard surface of the CT Scanner with supports under my head & under my knees and they were doing other stuff that I couldn/t see cuz I was laying flat and wasn't supposed to move. They put me into the CT Scannner tunnel a couple of times then back out. They were also doing some measurements on my body as well. I didn't want to start asking questions while they were working so I kept quiet. They ended up putting 3 tattoos on my chest. I thought they'd be some sort of cool tattoo but no, just 3 fairly small dots. one on either side of my chest and one right in the middle. I could barely see them. A little disappointed to be honest. The thing that impressed me most was how kind and patient and willing to describe some of what was happening the two medical team ladies were. I could tell they understood that this was all new and a little scary to someone who'd never had radiation before so they went out of their way to make me feel at easy which made the whole process quite pleasant actually. I got my radiation schedule as well. My first appointment is next Monday. We'll see how that goes. They're giving me a treatment every 3 days, except for weekends as they don't operate the radiation clinics on weekends or statutory holidays. Good news though as the Doc cut the teeatments down from 10 to 7 now so ... I suppose that's good? Onward & upward!!

Yes @despair not getting those low dose CT Scans are critical for all of us quitters as we age, Just because we quit before we had a serious health issue means little if we don't follow up with checks on our lungs going forward. Can't stress enough how important early detection is! Again; thanks SO much to all of you for the support! You're all like family in that sense. Support while quiting and now, support through my personal battle. Onward tomorrow to my "mapping" appointment

2

9 Months quit! That's fabulous @GonSo! You know how to manage those cravings now cuz that's part of the quitting tool box you've built over these last months. You're doing great just keep your eyes firmly on the prize!

Have a Great Time Stew!! Time with family is the BEST! Take advantage of it and have a blast! The nicodemon can't infect your thoughs when you have so much love around you! I don't know how I missed your previous post but those pictures you posted are beautiful. Looks like a great spot and what a time you must have had with your grand daughter & family!

@Pilgrim; this is a pretty well known event among quitters - serious return of hard cravings that make you think ... WTF? It's also referred to as part of the 3's. Three days into your quit is often the hardest day; three weeks into your quit is where many struggle because you think you should be over it by then but you're beginning to realize, there's still work to do and you still have to remain on guard to fight those cravings that are becomming less frequent but now come out of nowhere which is a little frightening. Then at three months, quitting is becoming a real slog and you think you should be done with it by now. Your brain is tired from dealing with all that quitting throws at you. The 3 month make is where you have entered "No Man's Land". You're no longer a smoker and you're not sure you're really quit yet. It's a period of time that really tests your resolve! This is when you need to reflect back on why you wanted to quit in the first place and renew your committment to the task, no matter what and believe what ALL of us more senior quitters will tell you ... it WILL & DOES get better if you just gather all your mental strenght and push forward further. You're near the end of the really tough part of your quit; so stick with it. You've invested way too much to go back now!

-12

Nope! Edgewalk at the top of the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada. In case you have the urge to hang over the edge attached to just a cable, 116 storys up (1,168 ft/356 metres). That would be another Nope!

-10

That could be what it was @Cbdave. It was in the Bahamas so likely they would have been on a septic system rather than an actual sewer system.

Yeah, Thanks much @BKP for your input from inside in industry, so to speak. This is what I'm sensing as well that early detection is key and that treatment results then are more often than not very good and your words only confirm my thoughts! As you say, it's really critical for people like all of us who smoked for many years to get those low-dose CT Scans annually if possible because when cancer is in it's early stages, there's no symptoms at all so you will never feel it coming on like you would with a cold. By the time there are noticable symptoms, it will be much more difficult to treat and likely poorer treatment results.

Nope! My parents used to rent a house in the bahamas for a couple of months in winter and one year there was a flooding rain and when my mother went to use the toilet the next morning, there was a big black snake right there in the toilet It got in there somehow from outside due to the rain. Can't remember where she said she went until someone got there to pull it out but, OMG, an you imagine seeing that?

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Thank you all for your well wishes ... it's a little overwhelming actually as I didn't expect that sort of support. I've been posting a detailed account of what's happening to me in case others find themselves in a similar situation at some point. It's of course all new to me so I thought it might be of interest to others as well? I received a call this morning actually with the time & date of the "Mapping" process. I will receive my radiation appointment times as well when I go to that appointment so it's all moving along at good speed. I'll probably get someone to drive me to the first radiation appointment in case there's any immediate negative effects then I'll perhaps know better for future appointments what to expect. I'll keep y'all posted!

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Good job @Kdad! Keep working at it and you'll soon be a free man. Free of that nasty addiction to nicotine that takes so much from us and gives nothing back except a need for another smoke

Looks yummy! Now you've made me hungry .......

-4

My appointment yesterday with the Oncology team that will be handling my case went well. It was longer than I had anticipated as they really dig deep into your medical history. They also gave me information of how to access the online communication tool called MyChart. It's a way both patient & medical team can communicate between visits and for the administrators to communicate upcoming appointment details. Most of the time was spent with the nurse detailing my entire medical history then I had to wait awhile for the Doctor. He came in and basically said he agreed with the pulmonogist at the lung clinic that radiation treatment would be the best route for my situation and would have the least impact in terms of side effects etc. He then explained the process and reviewed possible side effects I might experience as a result of the treatment; the most common one being acute exhaustion. There were a number of others as well, just like there are when we quit smoking. There's plenty of possible symptoms we may experience when we quit but we don't experience them all normally. The next steps are; I will be contacted with an appointment date for what they call a "mapping session". This is a process where they will map on my chest exactly where the cancerous nodule is in my upper left lung that they want to zap with eacch radiation session. They will apparently use a number of precise measurements that will be fed into the radiation gizmo so it knows where to zap me. It will result in a series of three tatoos on me. One on each side and one in the center of my chest. After that's done they will schedule 10 sessions of radiation for me over roughly a month's time. They schedule each session a few days apart so the patient has time to recover before the next session in case they're experiencing negative effects. Each session will be about 30 mins. but only about 10 mins of that time will be actually getting zapped. I guess the balance of the time is ensuring they're zapping the correct spot? The Doc said he's pretty confident these sessions will do the trick in ridding me of this issue (75-80% was his guess). He also said he wanted to schedule a brain MIR for me at some point. That surprised me so I asked the reason for that. He said just a precaution and to establish a base starting point in case anything changed in future. He explained that often people with lung cancer find that it spreads to the brain. He said it would not at all be likely in my case but they want to just make sure of that and have that as part of my future medical file. So, now waiting to hear when my "mapping" appointment will be. All the appointments will be in this same town that's about a 45 minute drive from where I live. No big deal I just hope they schedule my appointments around rush hour times because there's only 1 main highway that goes there and it will be jammed at rush hour times.

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Congrats on being quit and smoke free for 11 years! Hope you do something nice for yourself to celebrate the milestone @Paula B.