Scared of lung cancer.....please someone help

[motherof3girlies]

For once this HA attack is not about me but about my husband. He is 36, never smoked except pot in college (but who hasn’t) and we have three little ones. We are all pretty sick around here with a cough/cold but he is much worse. After I have begged and begged he finally went to Urgent Care and they have him a chest x ray and she said “everything looks great but there is one spot that might be pneumonia” so she is sending his scan in to the radiologist. I asked him if she was concerned and he said no not at all, they gave him a breathing treatment there a prescription for antibiotics and an albuterol inhaler. I’ve read numerous sites that say they always thought pneumonia and it turned out to be cancer. Should I send him for a second opinion, he isn’t worried but I’m a freaking wreck. Things are FINALLY going right in our lives so I know something bad will happen. Please help me.

[Yvaine]

Doctors know what to look for. No one is concerned about it but you, because you are creating this idea that its something serious. Do not google. Half that crap is made up to scare people anyways. How do you know that those stories you read REALLY happened? You dont and they probably didnt. Even if they did, what seriously are the odds? Let him give his antibiotics a try and see if he feels better. The thing is, everyone has been sick. Especially the season, pneumonia will happen. The odds of it being lung cancer is highly unlikely. Have faith- he will be alright.

[countrygirl]

Beleve me the drs know what to look for and always err on caution. My non smoking friend was diagnosed with lung cancer fron a basic chest x ray done because of an injured rib. No symptoms whatsoever. But they knew straight away on basic xray that they were highly suspicious they were looking at cancer. So your husband no doubt has an infection spot due to this horrible flu. Be very reassured he has infection only

[NervUs]

For once this HA attack is not about me but about my husband. He is 36, never smoked except pot in college (but who hasn’t) and we have three little ones. We are all pretty sick around here with a cough/cold but he is much worse. After I have begged and begged he finally went to Urgent Care and they have him a chest x ray and she said “everything looks great but there is one spot that might be pneumonia” so she is sending his scan in to the radiologist. I asked him if she was concerned and he said no not at all, they gave him a breathing treatment there a prescription for antibiotics and an albuterol inhaler. I’ve read numerous sites that say they always thought pneumonia and it turned out to be cancer. Should I send him for a second opinion, he isn’t worried but I’m a freaking wreck. Things are FINALLY going right in our lives so I know something bad will happen. Please help me.

No, you should not send him for a second opinion. He is not worried. That's the bottom line. We, as spouses, parents, whatever, really have to resist inflicting our HA on others.

He is on antibiotics and that will help the pneumonia. Unfortunately, there is no quick fix to this and you will have to wait for the treatment to take effect, but focus on improvements in his health as a way to calm your HA panic. I know how tough it is.

[motherof3girlies]

They called us back and said his X-rays were normal, no pneumonia. Then what was that spot that she saw??? Now I’m really confused. He had a dry persistent cough about the whole month of September and then it went away and now he has this terrible one from the flu. I’m just so confused. How does someone get two bad boughts of coughs in a matter of months that take forever to go away and then get an X-ray and she says there is a “suspicious” spot that looks like pneumonia and then the radiologist says Everything looks normal. WTF, does that mean??? I’m cringing EVERYtime I hear him cough and he is not concerned at all!!! I read an article about a girl my husbands age (36) that got a cough that wouldn’t go away, finally went to urgent care where they did an X-ray and saw a spot that looked like pneumonia and turns out it was cancer!!!!! I think he needs a CT.

[Fishmanpa]

I can't speak for your husbands test but millions of people have benign lung nodules (there was a thread on this recently). Typically they're caused by a chest infection at some point in life. I have two that have been there who knows how long but show up on x-rays and scans. They've been the same size for many years and the doctors aren't concerned nor am I and I'm a cancer survivor ;)

Same with your husband's situation. If they thought it was concerning, more tests would have been forthcoming.

Positive thoughts

[NervUs]

I had the same exact situation as your husband. For a year, I would get persistent dry cough after colds. I coughed 9 months out of the year. The inhaler or steroids helped it each time. I was finally diagnosed with asthma, and my pulmonologist said my description of lasting coughs after every cold did not jive with lung cancer.

You need to give the cough a chance to go away. If it responds to inhaler and antibiotic treatment (and no one of two days is not long enough), then it's not cancer.

I will say, I was always given corticosteroid inhalers (like Symbicort) for protracted cough (I now take Breo all the time). If albuterol doesn't do it, that's probably where they will go next. IME, doctors DO NOT jump from cough to lung cancer, and pushing for CT is not the way to handle this (since it's not even your body) or any good for your HA. It's very difficult to trust the system- I get that. But, let the doctors do their job. Try their treatments, let them determine next steps if there are any (he might get better), and push for investigation if treatment fails for a couple courses. I know it's hard, but we need to be patient with this, as we can't snap our fingers and heal our bodies.

Good luck! I am sure he is going to recover.

[motherof3girlies]

Thanks guys. I do better and I stop worrying until I hear him cough again. He will take his 3rd ZPac tonight so hopefully tomorrow is better. He rufuses to take any meds during the day so I’m guessing that’s why he coughs a lot. I hope this is just the flu and the X-ray didn’t miss anything. I can’t keep thinking it’s more

[lofwyr]

I am the guy fishmanpa was talking about who brought up the lung nodules. Two small nodules were found in my lungs incidentally during anchest cat for another medical issue. I lost it because I saw them written into my report without knowing what I was really looking at. Ignorance was bliss, but I learned that upto half the population who gets CT scans show lung nodules. Unless they are large, they are very very rarely cancer. In fact if they are under 5mm there is less than a .9% chance of them being malignant, and even if they are they are so small and caught so early they are very treatable. The point I am getting at is there is little reason to be concerned at this point. I have also had walking pneumonia and it shows up on an X-ray too. As Fishmanpa says, it's not cancer until it is cancer. And very rarely is actually as bad as we worry about.

[Fishmanpa]

I am the guy fishmanpa was talking about who brought up the lung nodules. Two small nodules were found in my lungs incidentally during anchest cat for another medical issue. I lost it because I saw them written into my report without knowing what I was really looking at. Ignorance was bliss, but I learned that upto half the population who gets CT scans show lung nodules. Unless they are large, they are very very rarely cancer. In fact if they are under 5mm there is less than a .9% chance of them being malignant, and even if they are they are so small and caught so early they are very treatable. The point I am getting at is there is little reason to be concerned at this point. I have also had walking pneumonia and it shows up on an X-ray too. As Fishmanpa says, it's not cancer until it is cancer. And very rarely is actually as bad as we worry about.

Right on man! :yesyes:

Positive thoughts