Just wanted to post a quick update about Wayne’s lung nodes. He was able to get in for a visit with the pulmonologist today.
The lung doc wasn’t too concerned. He assessed Wayne’s risk by asking questions like:
- Are you a smoker?
- Have you ever smoked?
- How’s your appetite?
- Any unexplained weight loss?
- Have you had a cough with any phlegm or blood?
He then punched in Wayne’s age and the answers to the above questions in a handy app to determine Wayne’s risk for lung cancer.
It came back at just above 2%.
In other words, low.
If he does have cancer, it’ll be a slow growing kind. But the doctor didn’t think that will prove to be the case.
He recommended following up with another CT scan in three months. He felt the risks of doing anything as invasive as a biopsy were too high at this point.
I liked him and I liked his conservative approach.
I also felt reassured that it’s probably just a mild infection showing up.
Gives us a reason to be even more thankful this Thanksgiving.
I don’t know if he’s been to the southwest before, but we have a fungus here called coccidioidomycosis and it causes lung nodules. It’s rather like mono with a cough. You get it from breathing in dust that is airborne. Just a thought, but nodes can be caused by prior illnesses and injuries too. Thoughts and prayers with him.
HI! We lived in AZ for 13 years. Now that you mention it, I remember Valley Fever!!!! But check you out using the proper name…which if I’d ever heard it, I didn’t know that’s what it was! But he has also had pleurisy and pneumonia before. So maybe those might have contributed? Who knows. The doc said it could be that, or a new mild infection. But he was optimistic that since the nodes were round and not jagged it was unlikely to be cancerous. That was a huge relief. I sure do appreciate you taking the time to stop by with suggestions and of course thoughts & prayers like this!