For the past 6-7 weeks I’ve had a cough that wouldn’t go away. I noticed it when I was in SF for a wedding and figured it was the dry air. When I got home, I scheduled a doctor appointment because my lungs were hurting from the non stop coughing. I was diagnosed with bronchitis, which didn’t seem unusual because 2 of my other co workers also had similar symptoms.
The doc didn’t feel like it was necessary to schedule a chest x ray because I’ve only shown symptoms for about 2.5 weeks but if they continued then he would recommend them.
2 weeks went by, the meds that he prescribed seemed to help but things got worse when I ran out because I was dry heaving thick white fluid every morning.

I kind of ignored it because we had trips to NYC over Memorial Day weekend and to Denver the following weekend.
My friend Aaron and his girlfriend planned a short hiking trip at the Red Rocks for Saturday afternoon. I became worried about myself because I’ve hiked much more difficult terrain at higher altitudes before but I was getting winded every few minutes. I’m glad the group was patient with me and gave me plenty of time to rest.

We came home yesterday (Sunday) Joanna and the rest of my family nagged me to schedule a follow up appointment because my cough was getting worse. I could only find an appointment with the same doc for Friday which I scheduled.
Mom got on my case about it this morning (Monday) while I was at work. The nurses line took my symptoms and urged me to go to the ER.

I didn’t want to pay that money (go America) so I went to urgent care instead after work. My brother was graduating high school today and I thought I’d be able to get in and out by the time the ceremony started.
I waited over an hour to see a doctor. He checked me out and said “it’s pneumonia, but it could be a good kind of pneumonia which is easily treatable but let’s do an x ray to be sure.”

I waited some more, got my chest xray done , waited, and then saw the doctor again. He said “the good news is that it’s not pneumonia, the bad news is that I don’t know what it is and neither does the radiologist. It certainly looks treatable though.”
I didn’t think anything of it and asked “ok treatable with like pills or an inhaler…?” His face looked concerned.
“No I’m sorry, when I say treatable, I mean possibly chemo therapy or surgery. I’m sorry to be the one to deliver this news to you. My recommendation is to go to the ER immediately and get additional tests done.”

I thanked him for his time, told Joanna and my dad that I was heading to the ER and then the severity of the situation started sinking in:
– What if this is really serious?
– How could it be? I’m only 30, I exercise and eat healthy.
– There’s so much I haven’t done yet, how will this affect what I can or can’t do in the future?

These are some of the thoughts that whirled through my head as I drove 20 min to the hospital in St. Louis Park.

Dad left the graduation ceremony early against my wishes. Both he, Joanna, and I arrived at the same time.
The waiting room was PACKED. Even the staff said it was unusually busy for a Monday.

I went through phases of waiting and getting tests done in triage. After an hour and a half, they were ready for the CT scan.

Throughout this entire process I cracked jokes and did the best I could with staying positive. I asked Angie the lab tech to take a picture of me in the CT machine. She said this was the first time anyone’s ever asked her to do that. I said I’m paying a ton of money for it, might as well make it a memory as my first CT scan. With my parents being there and asking all their hard questions at the staff and putting blame on any little thing that could have led to this moment caused my blood pressure and heart rate to go up above normal. It’s probably their coping mechanism for dealing with their kid potentially having cancer.

At around 11pm the doctor came in with the CT scan results. I had a growth in my chest around my right lung that was pressing up against it which was causing the coughing. The size was 3.42 inches x 5.47in x 4.29in. This thing is in my chest.

The plan right now is to find a pulmonologist to do additional tests, potentially a biopsy to figure out what this thing is and how to get rid of it. Options to do the biopsy are either through my mouth or an incision through my ribs. After that I might have to do chemo or a surgical removal by splitting my rib cage in half or something less invasive. Nobody knows right now and that’s what’s scary.

So that’s the long story to catch you up on where things are at right now.
Physically, every time I cough now has an ominous feeling which reminds me of what I don’t know and what could happen.
Mentally, I’m feeling a lot of mixed emotions and thoughts
– How broke am I going to be after this?
– Why couldn’t I enjoy even a month of freedom after finishing grad school?
– I won’t be able to scuba dive anymore.
– This will be such a burden on my family and Joanna.
– What did I do to deserve this?
– What parts of my plan for the future will never happen?

It’s 3 am and it’s been a very long day. I plan on continuing to blog this very scary journey. I hope you follow along and share some words of comfort. I apologize ahead of time that I may not be able to respond to each and every one of your messages but know that I appreciate all your prayers and words of encouragement.