I had been a smoker for 30 years, a non-smoker for 20 years, and was always aware that lung cancer was still a possibility.
My symptoms were not typical and felt as if I had something sharp stuck on the right side of my throat when I swallowed hard or turned my head to the right. The year was 2009. My chest X-ray showed nothing. Thyroid test showed nothing as well as additional testings.
Finally, after one and a-half years of everything being negative, I told my primary that I wanted to get to the bottom of this.
I was told that the National Task Force did not recommend a scan (recommended in 2013) but if I wanted one, he would have a thoracic surgeon set one up. The CT scan showed a cancerous growth in my upper right lobe, too high for an X-ray to detect. Stage 3 lung cancer! Due to expert care I am still cancer free 11 years later. BE YOUR OWN ADVOCATE.
