It's Probably Not Cancer

July 18. I saw a pulmonologist two weeks after that first phone call of doom. 

Two weeks of wondering what the fuck is going on inside my body. 

My dear cousins (sisters, really) shared their stories about the importance of not going down the Google rabbit hole of researching lung nodules, lung cancer, or any of the scary words used in the chest x-ray writeup posted online. Honestly, it was easy to avoid searching because I simply didn't want to know. I knew no matter what it was, it was bad and I wanted nothing to do with it. 

In that time I had a CT scan that was originally only supposed to be of my lungs but the pulmonologist decided at the last minute to include my abdomen and pelvis, which naturally only made me feel that much more fucked. Could other areas be just as screwed up too? 

When the CT scans posted online it was hard not to flip out. It seemed like every other organ had something wrong with it. Phrases like "consistent with metastatic disease," "hepatic steatosis," "lesions," "masslike contours," and "conglomerate lesion." I emailed the results to my aunt who used to be in the medical field and she said it raised more questions than answers, much to my disappointment.

Once I got to the pulmonologist's office she asked me a hundred super detailed questions, angling for anything that could possibly give us a clue as to what was wrong with my lungs. My NON-SMOKING lungs, mind you.

She showed me the x-rays from my CT scan.

Fuck meeeee, the x-rays. She showed me x-rays of my lungs that looked inhuman. Impossible. Unthinkable. Yet clear as day, my lungs looked like a pepperoni pizza. Or a Dalmatian. 

My guess going into the appointment was that this was a bacterial or fungal infection caused by my CPAP sleep apnea machine being dirty, since apparently I was supposed to clean the damn thing every single day, not once a week like I had originally been told years ago when I first got it. 

The main thing was that the pulmonologist said it was unlikely that it was cancer. Possible, but unlikely. Cancer is usually only on one side, there's usually fluid in the lungs, and the lymph nodes are usually affected. None of these presented.

I left the office feeling fucked but not completely fucked. I would have a lung biopsy soon to determine what all this was, I'd get treatment, everything would be fine in a couple months. Easy peasy. 

Right? 

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