Juggling For A Cure

Every year when Morton Pollner had his checkup, he worried that doctors would find something on his lung. For years, they didn’t. Then his luck ran out.

“My reaction was, ‘Well, you smoked for 30 years. You got away with it for another 30 years and this is it.’ I thought it was a death sentence,” he says.

Pollner, who lives in Monroe, N.Y., was 76 when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Like many patients his age, he didn’t expect there would be any effective treatment. Lung cancer is the second most common cancer in men and women. And it is mainly a disease of older people. Only about 2 percent of lung cancer patients are under 45 and the average age at diagnosis is about 70.

Older patients are frequently not offered curative treatment like surgery, because they and their families and even their doctors often think they won’t be able to tolerate it. So they are referred for supportive care to control symptoms, rather than surgery to remove the cancer.

Older Patients Can Benefit From Lung Cancer Surgery

But after a few weeks, they realized the mass was staying the same, and he was growing just fine.

So he was born, all okay. Little chubby baby boy of happiness.

Yesterday he had the mass removed from his lung. HALF of one of his lungs was removed, the Lung itself, not just the mass. It won’t grow back, so he has one and a half lungs, which is okay, his body will compensate

Surgery went well, and after ONE DAY of having a lung removed, he’s already home. How amazing is that?! Here he is just after coming home from a lung removal surgery. 

Tracheostomy? A tracheotomy or a tracheostomy is an opening surgically created through the neck into the trachea (windpipe) to allow direct access to the breathing tube and is commonly done in an operating room under general anesthesia. A tube is usually placed through this opening to provide an airway and to remove secretions from the lungs. Breathing is done through the tracheostomy tube rather than through the nose and mouth.

A Baby Koala Clings To His Mother While She Undergoes Surgery

Lizzy the koala was taken to a wildlife hospital in an Australian zoo, with her son holding on to her side. Poor Lizzy had been hit by a car. Her little boy, Phantom, only 6-months-old, was luckily unharmed and screamed when they tried to remove him from his mother.

Lizzy suffered a collapsed lung that required emergency surgery. Phantom continued to hold on and would not leave her even during the operation.

i have oxygen….and coffee…and probably at least half of everything i own in 3 different bags and im leaving for Nashville in about 45 mins!!! ahh! jack daniels distillery, taylor swift concert, and copious amounts of whiskey, bbq, and country music = an exceedingly happy me! 

this summer was filled with vacations and trips and events all because i have been on a very steady decline and transplant is very soon my only option and i was blessed with family and friends who made sure that i did so many amazing things before i went on the list. this is my last one. its bitter sweet for me because its my favorite place in the world but i may never make it back, not to be negative but you never know. transplant is a terrifying thing to me and i still havent completely registered that its going to happen. i meet with my dr abut it next month. right after my birthday. i am going to make this trip the best one yet. i will laugh like i have enough air to do so, i will take risks and chances and turn my experiences into memories that last my whole life. i will dance as much as i physically can and do so at every opportunity . i am blessed to get this chance. i hope all of you get the chance to feel this way one day too. 

So today I got a shitty phone call from my doctor telling me that a suspected lung bacteria has returned with a vengeance (for all those in the know they think it’s a-typical tb mycobacterium abscessus). Now with CF growing bacteria in your sputum is common, but this bacteria is one you want to avoid if at all possible.

When applying for the lung transplant register there are rules and regulations about how ill/well you have to be, oxygen dependency, weight, etc… and there are strict rules on bacteria. Most bacteria are fine to operate on… but the one I have is not. And they won’t even consider me for the list until I’ve had 3 months free of this bacteria. This bacteria isn’t very easily treatable, we don’t know how much of it I have and we don’t know how long and intensely we’ll have to treat it. 

To put it bluntly, I won’t be on the official transplant list for at least 6 months at best. I may not ever make it on there.

Being as I was given 2 years untreated to live, I’m shitting 10 tonne fucking bricks.

Pa. girl home from hospital after lung transplants

Sarah Murnaghan, whose need for new lungs sparked a national debate about organ donation procedures, is home after 6 months in the hospital.

Today I went to Harefield hospital in Uxbridge for my official transplant assessment. There’s a very fine line on the transplant list between being ill enough and well enough to undergo the procedure - at the clinic I underwent a series of tests to determine my level of decline in lung function and yet my body’s ability to continue fighting, in order to have the op. I was also told about the process a bit more than I had previously - not in too much detail however.

After a long drawn out process of bloods, urine tests, sputum, heart and lung scans/xrays/echoes/etc I was called into a room to meet the consultant. I was expecting to hear bad news after the growth of a new mycobacterium that was discovered last week (a bacteria that grows predominantly in my lungs) - I was execting a no to the list. And then he said the vital words ‘YOU ARE BOTH ILL ENOUGH AND WELL ENOUGH FOR THE TRANSPLANT LIST’. There are guidelines to which this is agreed - I need to gain at least 3kgs (6kgs preferable) by mid March, and my sputum has to be free of mycobacterium abcessus until then (not the one I thought I’d grown recently). If that’s all ok then I have a 2 day assessment… and I’M ON THE MOTHER FUCKING LIST BY MID MARCH.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so ecstatic and relieved with news ever. I burst into tears of joy and punched the air when he told me. 

There are many risks with transplant - because of the bugs that I grow I may take triple time to recover (9 months) with 3 weeks in intensive care and a couple of months in the hospital before I even get to leave the front doors! There is also a 1 in 10 chance (for anyone in my position) that I won’t survive the first year. There’s also a chance I may not make transplant and die before I receive suitable lungs, the percentage chance is impossible to say with this though, it’s subjective. I may last 5/6 years if I get lungs. I may last 20. But, whatever the weather, I’m basically on the list. And that means that I’m less likely to die than if I wasn’t to be on it.