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Patient Story |
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David Crandall Warnerville, NY United States male Living with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma for 3 years, 9 months Age: 36 I was diagnosed 2 weeks after my grandmother passed away with lung cancer. I was a healthy 33 year old male with a wonderful wife and 2 beautiful young girls. It all started the day after Thanksgiving. I had trouble breathing and some tightness in the chest along with trouble swallowing. I went to my family doctor and he thought that I had bronchitis and automatically put me on antibiotic. After the treatment of antibiotic I had my wife call back and insist I have a chest x-ray because I was not feeling any better. Well, that chest x-ray changed my life forever. I had a 1 pound tumor that was sitting on top of my chest. All the symptoms were related to this growth that was just getting bigger and bigger. The doctors wasted no time. Before I knew it I was having a biopsy and then having a port placed in my chest and my head. I was sent home on oxygen because I couldn't breath. Then came the chemotherapy treatment. Having to explain to my 5 year old who was in kindergarten that daddy was going to have to stay in the hospital for 4 days to receive "medicine" to make him feel better and my 2 year old who had no concept of what was going on except that her daddy was gone for 4 days which seemed like an eternity. My wife had to split herself between taking care of her husband who needed her and her two very small children who also needed her. That went on for 8 very long months. I almost lost the battle to extreme neutropenia due to one of the chemotherapy drugs in March of 2007. I knew in my heart and to this day that this disease will not BEAT ME. I am now in remission but still undergoing what they call the maintenance phase of treatment. I receive chemotherapy every 28 days but am able to do it on an outpatient basis, thank goodness for that. It makes the disease a little more tolerable. I have terrible neuropathy from the chemotherapy and deal with extreme pain everyday. But as I joke with my wife when things get bad I tell her, "At least I'm looking at the green grass." Sometimes you have to find humor in dealing with this terrible disease. If I have learned anything from this it is to live life to the fullest and never take your family or friends for granted. Please feel free to contact me at my Email Dkmaranch@aol.com . |
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