The call
Thursday morning, we had a followup appointment with Dr. Escuro. My wife and I had only been awake for a few minutes when my phone rang. It was Dr. Khabbaza. We were actually expecting him to call, we just didn’t know when. He was calling with the results of my bronchoscopy.
I put the phone on speaker. He got right to the point.
It wasn’t sarcoidosis.
“You have lung cancer. It’s adenocarcinoma.”
Total shock, of course. My wife gasped. Then started crying. Lung cancer was never discussed as a possibility.
“Is it treatable?”
“Yes. Your oncologist will look at all of the test results and go over what treatment is best right now.”
Normally, he wouldn’t have given such a diagnosis over the phone, but he knew we were on the way to the oncologist already. We asked a few more questions and he told us how sorry he was about the news. Dr. Khabbaza is one of the nicest doctors I’ve ever met. If his office weren’t such a long drive, I’d still be seeing him as my regular pulmonologist. I recommend him to anyone.
Stage IV
We then saw Dr. Escuro again, as planned. He had also received the results and answered a lot of our questions. He also had the images from my scans the day before. The lesions on my spine were also cancer that had spread from my lungs. We asked what “stage” I was at. Since the original cancer had started in one organ and spread to another, I am stage 4.
We weren’t done with the tests either. My blood tests indicated a possibility for colon cancer. He said it was possible that it actually started in my colon and spread to my lungs. So he was scheduling a colonoscopy because that was the only way to be sure. (It was a few days later, and my colon is clean as a whistle, no cancer, no polyps.) He also was waiting for further tests on my lung biopsy.
The bronchoscopy indicated that I have adenocarcinoma, but he was awaiting more testing to see if mine had a genetic mutation. He said it was rarer in the United States, but that some lung cancers have what’s called an EGFR mutation. He said that if I turned out positive, than my first line treatment would be a pill. Since he didn’t expect that, he gave me information on the three chemotherapy drugs we would be using, starting within a couple of weeks.
This was all a lot to take in, of course. We had to call my family. I had to tell my employer. We got to my wife’s parents (they live next door) and they were crying. My wife cried for days. No one expects to get cancer at 44 years old.
August 4th, 2016 is a date neither of us will ever forget.