i'm so fucking scared. just in general

it started as a persistent light cough in january.

at that point i was making jokes about being a psa character because i was attributing it to an expired vape i used. which also happened to be the only vape i've ever tried in my life.

went to my pcp in later february because it was not going away

pcp sends me for an xray. nothing especially concerning shows up so she puts me on some preventative antibiotics in case there's any pneumonia forming.

over the next week i start getting intense stabbing pains in my side. i eventually go to the er. they run a ct scan and find an "abscess" that hadn't shown up pn the prior xray

since my town is pretty small and so is our hospital they want to send me to the big city. my cancer hospital that i'm already a patient at doesn't have any open beds so they sent me to this other place

the other place immediately puts me on tuberculosis precautions meaning i am under quarantine. my gf and sister had to put on these fuckin hazmat suits when they came to see me.

meanwhile they tell me they're pretty confident it's "just" pneumonia and they do a bronchoscopy with brush biopsy to figure out what kind of pathogen i have to better treat it.

they sent me home before the test results even came in

they send me home before the lab results even come back with the same antibiotics my pcp prescribed that didn't do shit.

granted i didn't argue with this because i didn't wanna be there

but they did reassure me that they were pretty sure it wasn't cancer 🙃

act 2.

i stay home for 2 weeks. my cough does not improve. the chest pains begin to come back.

i go back to the er. they run another xray. i remind them that this "abscess" didn't show up on the first xray so they run a ct too.

they say the ct shows improvement and extend my antibiotics by another week. they also refer me out to a pulmonologist to take over my case.

i wake up the next day to the pulmonologist blowing up both my and my dad's phone saying they need me to come in right now immediately.

i go in. the pulomonologist says he has no idea what the fuck was going on in the er but these scans do NOT show improvement. we have to do a second bronchoscopic biopsy because the first guys really half-assed it.

i go home and list out all my symptoms because apparently we're back to square one.

i give myself a panic attack and go to the hospital convinced i'm about to die. they talk me down a bit and i tell them i'd still rather be admitted than go home and have to keep coming back and they agree

so i spend a week doing various tests at the small hospital until my second bronchoscopy date, then go home.

act 3. a few days later my pulmonologist says he found cancer cells in my lungs.

he doesn't know if they're a recurrence from my previous oral cancer or a new primary tumor because the lining of the mouth and lungs are made of the same type of cell.

i happen to know the average life expectancy after getting a recurrent h+nc is 9-15 months and lung cancer has like a 30% survival rate so i figure i'm fucked either way.

spend the next week doing all the imaging tests and checkups and making really difficult phone calls and also my grandpa died at some point during all this btw.

now i'm starting treatment at my home hospital and getting some second opinions from my big cancer hospital as well as looking for a thoracis surgeon to cut up my lung. (resect the tumor. whatever)

and that's what you missed on glee