Posts Tagged ‘Scott’s Story’
My name is Scott. I’m a cancer survivor. I’m 35 years old. I live with my wife Marianne and our three dogs in Portland, Oregon. I first got sick in July of 2001. I’ve kept a pretty good calendar of events, and it’s scary to see how fast this progressed.
I saw my general practitioner on July 3rd, and I seemed totally healthy. On July 16th I started experiencing pain in my knees with a little numbness in my jaw. The next day I was flying to the East Coast to begin a three-week vacation at the National Scout Jamboree. By the time I got back East, the pain in my knees was getting pretty bad. I was glad to know that I had a medical staff right there at my camp, because something was definitely wrong.
Over the next several days I was treated by the camp doctors, but the pain medications and antibiotics weren’t doing anything. At that point I was often in too much pain to walk. I had fevers up to about 102 degrees, was having sweats, and a lymph node in my neck was swollen. I spent one night in the Army Base hospital. I took more pain medications, and the X-rays didn’t show anything. Even blood work didn’t clue anybody in.
Exhaustive Testing Leads to Diagnosis
On July 29th I flew home to Portland. The next day I saw my general practitioner, who took more X-rays and blood work. This time the blood showed something. The following week I had my first CT scan, and my doctor arranged appointments with an oncologist and an infectious disease specialist. The infectious disease was ruled out in one visit with that doctor, and cancer was quickly considered with one visit to the oncologist. …read the rest of this entry»
