#AdvancedLungCancer

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New Immunotherapy Treatment Shows Promise for Advanced Lung Cancer #advancedlungcancer #immunotherapy #ipilimumab #lungcancertreatment #nivolumab

[cancerfightingmd-blog]

Cancer Fighting MD

  My very first blog post! I am an MD currently in a surgical residency. On Feb 8th 2017, I was diagnosed with stage 3a lung cancer. As a busy physician, and a healthy never-smoker, I was shocked and so was EVERYONE else. I was only 28! My husband, Sam, has been trying very hard to get me to write about my experiences battling cancer, especially as a young doctor. 

  Truthfully, I didn’t think doctors can get cancer. I thought our white coats are protective shields against all things sickly happening to ourselves (this magical power obviously does not apply to our patients, sorry). But all jokes aside, my family and I were devastated. I kept researching online for medical articles about lung cancer in young patients and just the disease itself. What I found was even more devastating. The survival rate published was abysmal. I would tell Sam about my research results and then we would just cry... After a few days, I realized it was a huge mistake looking into medical publications on lung cancer. The doctor appointments and the endless scans were so overwhelming that I neglected the fact that I was becoming a patient. The numbers represented hundreds and thousands of patients’ outcomes which weren’t necessarily going to be mine. Looking into survival rate and prognosis published in medical journals created unnecessary hopelessness that was giving me so much anxiety that I could no longer function. I needed to let my doctors do their jobs (which include doing research in medical journals), and I just needed to be the patient. Reading about survivors’ stories was inspiring. I also went on Pinterest to learn about cancer fighting foods and started eating more fruits and vegetables (and other weird stuff like black cumin seeds, turmeric, jujube which is undoctor like because we hate it when patients take herbs thinking one head of broccoli a day is what cured their cancer and not the radiation/chemotherapy/surgery... okay I digress). 

  There is a saying that we always tell our patients - “let’s not worry until we have to.” So I decided I was going to try my best not to worry. Life can be short or long, but it is certainly full of surprises. Whatever that is coming my way, I’m spending my time to live and love - so let’s leave the worry for another day.