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Diane's Story:

I had no idea I was sick, never mind having lung cancer. There were times when I did feel something was not right with my health, but the doctors thought it was all in my head. So, I just continued living life. On December 9th , 2012, I started to get pains in my chest and felt sick to my stomach.

My family thought I was having a heart attack and called 911. I was taken to the emergency room, and it was there after all the tests showing I wasn’t having a heart attack; the doctor informed me that I had a mass in my chest. I cannot find the words to describe how I felt after the ER doctor so nonchalantly gave me the results of the chest x-ray. He then proceeded to give me morphine for the pain and medicine for the nausea. So that was the start of my surreal relationship with lung cancer.

After having a PET scan and a CT Guided Biopsy, I was diagnosed with Primary, Thorax Small

Cell Lung Cancer Stage, IIIA (T3, N2, M0, G2) Lymph-Vascular Invasion in my upper left lung and given the news on January 15, 2013. On January 31, 2013, I had surgery (Lobectomy) to remove the tumor from my upper left lung. Now the treatments begin to lessen the possibility of cancer recurring in my lungs and keep it from spreading to other parts of my body. My first round of chemotherapy in March 2013 almost killed me. The day after my first treatment I had to be

admitted into the hospital because, I was allergic to the chemo drug, cisplatin. I was unable to eat for a week. I was so sick, and my potassium and magnesium level were extremely low. I thought I was going to die. After this incident, I was told there was nothing else they could do for me, so I opted for a second opinion.