On 11/19/2006 Samschiles wrote:
Hi - I see that your message was dated early this month. I hope that since then, your consultation and prognoses has been good. Because there are some many ways for this type of cancer to manifest itself, it's hard to find someone who is going through a similar situation. Last Feb I was diagnosed with angiosarcoma and lost my left lung, after which I went through radiation therapy. Because my pscan came back showing that there wasn't any other cancer I didn't have to go through chemotherapy (thank goodness). Our concern is that I didn't have good margins. The cancer was actually in my pulmonary artery. It had attached my lung and, although my lung was 95 percent healthy, it was completely removed. I was very concern about the loss of my lung (among other concerns) as I was running 1/2 marathons and swimming 100 laps a day. I never gave it much thought (until I had the surgery of course) but to remove my lung, they went through my back. I didn't have the worry of caring for small children, my daughter want off to college before I was diagnosed and my son was also away completing his graduate work. The recovery from the surgery was actually not as bad as I thought it would be. My surgery was Feb 7 and I was back to working full time by mid March. The radiation treatment also wasn't as bad as I expected. I hope your wife doesn't have to go through this type of surgery, but I'm available to talk with her if she'd like. I have my next scan 12/08 and it's always an apprehensive time.