PDA

View Full Version : New, 8 months pregnant and terrified hubby has lung cancer and will die



katesa
03-01-13, 11:29
Hi everyone,

My god I'm so pleased to find this forum, I feel less of a freak and less lonely just by seeing that other people are like me.

I'm 28 and I've suffered from health anxiety for many years - you know the drill, everything is always the worse case scenario. I never got treatment for my anxiety but I somehow managed to ease off on fears over myself and I thought I had turned a corner.

I'm 8 months pregnant and we are expecting our first baby early Feb.

Unfortunately, I seem to have recently developed even worse anxiety than I have ever had but focused on my poor husband.

My husband is a pretty healthy 30 year old who has never smoked.
About 4 weeks ago he started with a nasty cold and cough. A week later (so just over 3 weeks ago) he went to the doctors and got a weeks worth of antibiotics. These did seem to help and as of now, his cough has reduced to a couple of very light coughs a day.

He has had pain that he describes as being in his ribcage for about 2 weeks which started as being a constant dull pain and now only hurts when he coughs or moves abruptly. He isn't coughing anything up, never has. He feels fine except for this pain and says the cough is barely noticeable now (again, a couple of light coughs a day now). He thinks the pain is from when his cough was realllllllllllllly bad and that he's strained the muscles in his ribs or something.

He had a chest x-ray monday (the gp said he could have one to put my mind at rest) and I went with him. The lady who took the x-ray saw what a state I was in and said that although a doctor had to look at it, she'd usually notice right away if there was "anything needing urgent referral" and that they'd tell us there and then if that was the case. She said she hadn't so I guess that's good but I know I'm going to climb the walls until the results come back.

So guys, could anyone tell me how likely they think this is to be lung cancer? Would his symptoms have got so much better if it was? Can they really see it immediately on a chest x ray or was the lady just trying to reassure me? And does anyone know how long the NHS would usually take to let us know if it was? (assuming that the lady who did the x ray missed something)

Also, does anyone else suffer from such extreme anxiety over the health of their loved ones?

Thank you so much everyone x

panickyme
03-01-13, 11:51
Awww you poor thing, HA is Mean. I suffer from it also! I had to get a lung x-ray a yr ago for pre-op and I had myself dying!!!!! I was shaking and crying and the tech said look I don't see anything visible, calm down. (same Radiologist would still have to look at it) They do know, they see it all the time, they have a really good feeling. I bet your husband will be just fine. Sometimes colds/infections take a while, and 2 rounds of meds before they go away. Try to relax, and think about that precious little peanut that is on the way. Congrats to you, and your husband. Hope you feel better soon. :bighug1:

McHovis
03-01-13, 12:28
Hi Katesa, welcome to Nomorepanic :)

I completely understand your fears as i have health anxiety as well, however i think there are quite a few different possibilities as to the cause of your husbands' cough.

I totally agree with what he thinks it could be, he may have strained a muscle or bruised some ribs during the course of his really bad cough.

There are other things that may be contributing, one such problem is a variation on what your husband said. My sister had an inflammation of the fluids in the rib cage called Costochondriosis (I think - something like that). This caused very bad pain and is dubbed 'the Devil's Grip'. This could have been caused by his cough.

Regardless, if he isn't coughing up any fluids or more specifically blood (trademark lung cancer symptom) he is almost definitely not suffering from lung cancer.

If he has never smoked or been in heavily polluted areas for prolonged periods of time it is even less likely that he has lung cancer.

I hope this has helped, Congratulations on your news of life to come!

Joe x

nomorepanic
03-01-13, 13:17
Hi and :welcome:

Congratulations on the baby!

Just to let you know that I had a bad cough once and I managed to crack a rib coughing and that was painful so it could be that.

justina
03-01-13, 13:20
I can totallly understand you, I am just like you, but trust me -that does NOT sound like anything bad! You will get good news I'm sure, and then you can put your mind at rest and wait for your lovely little baby! :bighug1:

katesa
03-01-13, 15:31
Thank you to every one of you lovely folk. I've been going crazy about this and it's nice to get responses from people who don't think I'm nuts. My poor husband is perplexed, though I am trying very hard to not say too much to him because I don't want to either scare him if he takes my concerns seriously or frustrate him if he doesn't.

Justinf
03-01-13, 23:23
If it's anything like the coughing virus that did the rounds in the Australian winter, it can take a couple of months to get over this. It took me a good six weeks from start to finish and I too thought I had lung cancer, but nope, it was a virus.