st. john's lodge no 2 - The Trestleboard

Lung Cancer Awareness Month

Meet Stephanie Williams, a 37 year old nurse turned stay at home mom. In March, 2021, Stephanie felt a wheezing sensation at the base of her throat. It was annoying, but hardly debilitating. She would find herself coughing mid sentence and, because it would come and go, she thought it might be a touch of allergy induced asthma, or, perhaps something related to Covid-19.

During her annual physical, she asked her doctor if she would order a chest x-ray. Fortunately for Stephanie, the doctor obliged and sent her down the hall right then and there. Stephanie had a clear shot of the screen as the images were loading. As a registered nurse, she knew a thing or two about xrays. Stephanie noted that there was a large cloudy spot on her right lung. She was not too concerned about this, however. Lung cancer was so far from Stephanie's mind that, when mentioning what she'd seen to her husband she quipped, "must've been some dust on the lens."

Days later, she met with a surgeon. Immediately they ordered a PET scan. The results were promising ‐ the cancer seemed to be confined to Stephanie's lung. A bronchoscopy/biopsy was also done, samples from seven lymph nodes. These results confirmed a cancerous lesion (adenocarcinoma) with the exception of one lymph node, which was compromised in the process, all these results came back negative for malignancy. The medical team suspected that Stephanie's adenocarcinoma was at Stage III.

The next course of action was a lobectomy. The plan/hope was that the surgeon would be able to complete the lobe removal robotically. The mass proved incompatible with this procedure. So Stephanie underwent an open thoracotomy. The thoracic surgery team removed both the upper and middle right lobe. Stephanie's recovery was not easy.

But upon discharge, she received the news that her margins and lymph nodes were indeed clear. There had been no plural or circulatory invasion, thus her doctor deemed her cancer stage II ‐ the best pathology report possible. Per today's standard protocol, the doctor sent her tumor samples for genetic testing. The results came back identifying the biomarker ALK+. Following four rounds of chemotherapy treatment, Stephanie's medical team is cautiously optimistic that