by Donna Marie Gray

Created on: January 13, 2007   Last Updated: June 29, 2009

I, too, am a cancer survivor. My 5 year anniversary for survival was March 2nd, 2006. At this point I feel I am the luckiest person on the planet because every step in my experience was accidental.

I had been being treated for a year and a half for a back injury from a fall. I had the pain pills, the bed rest, the injections, the exercises, and finally the news that surgery would be necessary. The doctor was hoping for March 2nd. I spent an afternoon having my pre-op testing done and was awaiting the call from my doctor for a date to do the surgery. The call came, but the message was not what I expected.

The doctor told me they had found a more serious problem and that my back surgery had to be put on a "back burner" for now. I was told that in my pre-op chest X-ray there was a small spot at the top of my left lung and I was scheduled immediately to see a pulmonary doctor. An intense battery of tests were performed within a few days, and I found myself in the hospital, coincidently on the same date for which my back surgery would have been scheduled.

My lung surgery was successfully carried out, although I have no recollection of anything until early April. The day following surgery I fell victim to ARDS (acute respiratory distress syndrome), a condition unknown to anyone in my family or any of my friends. Much research took place to learn about ARDS, along with the information supplied by my doctors at the hospital.

How lucky could I get? Eastern Virginia Medical School is part of Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. The scool was in the process of working on some experimental drug to treat ARDS. Permission to use the drug was required from my family. Apparently within a few days I regained conciousness and came out of the coma which I had been in since being stricken by ARDS. FYI: Survival of ARDS has a rate of 50%.

My very first thought when I awoke was that, during the bizarre dream-world I had been living in for weeks, I thought a doctor had said I did not need chemo or radiation treatments. This, to me at least, was unheard of for someone having lung cancer surgery. This was the very first thing I recall asking the doctor because I thought I had dreamed it. He assured me that it was true. In fact, he had to reassure me for several days that I did not dream it. He said I was fine!

As I stated at the beginning, everything about my experience was accidental. I had never been sick or had any symptoms of having a lung/breathing problem, (if I hadn't fallen, I wouldn't

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