When you first get to Vietnam and they tell you where you're going to go,
and they tell you to sit on the side of a helicopter with your legs,
dangling over the side of it,
and it lifts up and you're four or 500 feet in the air, and you say to yourself,
"Damn, they never trained me about this."
I'd been coughing for a long time and I always thought it was just related to
allergies and colds. And so I never thought anything of it, but I thought, well,
what if, what if it's something else
I'm a Vietnam veteran. And so I've experienced bad things.
And I think what happened was I, I see that I have some kind of a spot.
So now you just gotta deal with the next step, whatever that is.
I'd been smoking on and off for 60 years might not be a bad idea to go get a
screen. The next morning, I got a call that they did spot something on the CT.
Then I felt it was definitely more of a concern,
It was definitely something serious.
I remember distinctly calling him, you know,
the very first time when the results came through and he was,
he was calm. We talked about the results of the pet scan. You know,
he was very relieved to know that there was someone there.
That we were going to make sure we took care of him.
I think there was more of a determination. There was certainly some fear.
I don't know what would have happened to me had I waited for another couple of
years.
You just have to decide within yourself how you're going to get through with
whatever it is you're dealing with.
You know, compared to 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, you know,
that the percentages were so low. 15%,
18% of overall five-year survival rate.
And now it's up to 90% with these screens.
So it's just so important that we just get out into the community and encourage
people.
Vic's Tumor was picked up on a lung cancer screening CT.
And fortunately the subsequent imaging,
which we obtained seemed to indicate that his cancer was very early stage,
clinical stage one. So for Vic, we did a thoracoscopic
lung resection, which involves several small incisions,
a camera and tiny instruments, and we're able to complete the entire operation,
all minimally invasively.
I hadn't,
this is first time I've had surgeries since I was seven years old for a
tonsillectomy. So there was the apprehension about that.
The procedure essentially took out about 20% of my lung
capacity because there are five loaves and they took one of them out.
He said you're still healing, but you know, in time,
the 80% that's remaining will in fact compensate for the 20% that's gone.
And I take that to faith and I trust, and I feel enough,
I feel better enough that I think it's probably already working.
The biggest thing for those of us who were in Vietnam was the number of days
that we had left in country. You know, like I have 10 days left,
I have nine days left, whatever, and I felt the same way with the surgery.
So it was all about getting past that day and getting to the next stage.
Start again tomorrow. He is a really wonderful person.
He had the most positive attitude throughout the entire thing from our first
meeting through surgery and his postoperative recovery, he did really well.
And it's hard to overstate the importance of a positive attitude. I mean,
not only just in life, but when you're facing something like a cancer diagnosis,
the way in which an individual patient approaches that can have a huge impact on
kind of the team overall and certainly on their individual outcome.
And that was the case with Vic.
He called me after and said, you know,
I really want to promote your program because you know, you, you saved my life.
You know, you did something that's so marvelous and people, he, he knows,
he knew the fear. We need to find more patients like this.
And that's why we're just so proud to be involved in a program like this.
I'm still amazed. I honestly, I'm still amazed at how successful it was.
So there was a lot of people that had to work together to get me through what
had to happen. I'm just very thankful for that.
And I feel blessed and fortunate, and that's why I want,
if there's anything I can do to help somebody decide to do it,
then I'll be happy.