Breathe

Had to go to the hospital today for my 6 monthly check.
Today it was just a chat with the consultant and a lung-function test.
That comprises blowing into the machine pictured to give a variety of measures in terms of just how well your lungs are performing.

Just over three and a half years ago I was called to my doctors following some routine tests and told I had small-cell lung cancer and was probably going to die in a few weeks. Yes, it was as blunt as that. And no, it's not a great thing to hear, ever.

Apparently there was an outside chance it wasn't what they said. So despite probably being in shock, I did a bit of research on my results. I discovered that statistically speaking, having never smoked in my life, the odds were heavily stacked against me having small-cell lung cancer. The more likely prognosis was lymphoma (still bad but not as bad) or Sarcoidosis (not great but the best of a bad bunch)

So I opted to go, as quickly as possible, for some more tests, including a mediastinoscopy, which diagnosed (well, showed most probable) my malaise to be Sarcoidosis.

It turned out a radiographer reading my original scan was probably a bit lazy and diagnosed based on first impression rather than consider the rest of my medical history. Yeah, thanks for that.

Anyhoo, three and a half years later, I'm still here. And today I was told that as a result of no degradation of results in that time, it's unlikely to be progressive and I'm therefore discharged from the consultant.

Result.

The moral of my story, don't accept what they tell you - double check for yourself.