The Diagnosis

After months of illness:
     1st Bruce had terrible headaches that doctors concluded were due to sinusitis and required sinus surgery. He really did need sinus surgery and the headaches in that area of his head went mostly away but not completely and the new headaches were different than they were before.
      2nd He had horrendous stomach pain that was misdiagnosed as a ulcer and treated for one for 2 weeks. Time wasted!
      3rd he was diagnosed with a diseased gallbladder. That was a fact after an excruciatingly painful test, that lasted 3 hours, and weeks of horrendous pain it was determined that his gallbladder was operating at only 18% and needed to come out. The gallbladder was removed but the pain never went away. He was actually readmitted to the hospital for further tests but no cause was found.
      4th Bruce's Asthma kicked in and with all of the normal treatment would not subside even though his Asthma is usually easily controllable. Finally an astute Dr. (these seem to be rare in our experience) sent him to a Pulmonologist who ordered a CT scan with contrast and it was determined that he needed a biopsy.

to our shock and horror Bruce was diagnosed with squamous cell lung cancer on January 30, 2015.
    
     What? Lung Cancer? We are Mormon and Bruce has never smoked a cigarette. 90% of squamous cell patients smoke, how can this be?

After a Pet scan and a Brain Scan we went to visit the Lung Cancer team at the Huntsman Cancer center. They explained to us that Squamous cell cancer is not curable, but it is treatable. The median life expectancy of Squamous cell patients that don't smoke is 2 years but some live 5 yrs - 20 years. He is in stage 4 which means the cancer has spread to his brain, his bone and his spleen. This does not, however, affect the prognosis. They also explained that there is a question as to whether or not this really is Squamous cell lung cancer or Lymphoma. Oh please, please be Lymphoma since Lymphoma is curable. Further tests are being run on the tissue sample that was collected from the biopsy and we will know soon, not sure when 1-3 weeks, what type of Cancer it is for sure. In the meantime Bruce will go for radiation treatment on the cancer cells that are in his brain. We will meet with the Radiology team on Monday and will find out his treatment schedule at that time.

The good news is that the new face of Chemotherapy is DNA driven, which means they test your DNA to see what type of Chemo your body will be responsive to. There are also other treatments that will be available soon possibly in the next year to year and a half, that look very promising.

This has been a shock to our family. We are grateful for fasting and prayers and for our faith. We are grateful for the knowledge we have of the plan of salvation and for the love that we share as a family. We are also so grateful for wonderful, caring friends who are there for us.