Hi Lilymaree,

I’m sorry you have received such worrying news My sister was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2005. We were never given an actual staging but it had spread to several lymph nodes,the pericardium and the diaphragm. She had a total left pneomonectomy and survived until late 2020. She never had a recurrence of her cancer but died from pulmonary fibrosis in her right lung. When she was first diagnosed we felt so hopeless as she was in her sixties and really ill we didn’ think she would survive the surgery however she did well and saw her grandchildren grow up. 

Try not to pay too much attention to the survival rates on the websites they are often using old statistics and treatments have progressed so much in recent years. I hope you get some good news after all your tests have been completed. I will be thinking of you.

Take care

Helen

Survival rates are statistics that can give you some idea of what can be expected, but you are an individual and will have your own story. 

It will depend on lots of factors including the staging of your cancer (its size, type and whether it has spread at all), your age, general health, gender, smoker status and so on. 

I'm not medically trained so this is just based on what I've learned about my own lung cancer diagnosis and treatment. If they are proposing keyhole removal of a small tumour and if it hasn't spread at all, that could be a complete cure for you. 

Mine was locally advanced (stage 3a) but there's still a chance that it has been cured by surgery,  and chemotherapy is to follow soon which I hope will mop up any residual bits and keep me safe for some years to come. 

'Five year survival' doesn't mean people only live five years. It means they live at least five years.

I hope that helps and wish you all the best for your scans.

Ellajay,

Thankyou for your reply and yes it has helped a  little to ease my mind ,it is just that everything has happened so quickly i dont think i have had time to accept it all ,as i was only diagnosed on wednesdasy

Helen ,

 thankyou for your reply ,it has helped me a lot