{"id":26156,"date":"2020-07-07T19:13:40","date_gmt":"2020-07-07T19:13:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cmshub.wpengine.com\/?p=318022"},"modified":"2024-11-03T15:16:45","modified_gmt":"2024-11-03T15:16:45","slug":"her-cancer-surgery-was-postponed-due-to-the-covid-19-pandemic-now-shes-terminal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/her-cancer-surgery-was-postponed-due-to-the-covid-19-pandemic-now-shes-terminal\/","title":{"rendered":"Her Cancer Surgery Was Postponed Due To The COVID-19 Pandemic \u2014 Now She\u2019s Terminal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every cancer patient\u2019s worst fear during the COVID-19 pandemic has been that delayed treatment may cause their cancer to turn more aggressive.<\/span>For Kathy Swan, that fear has been realized.<\/span>Swan was first diagnosed with stage I lung cancer several years ago, when she was 55 years old<\/a>. Swan went to her doctor for a routine physical and he suggested that she have a low-dose lung CT scan because she was a smoker.<\/span><\/span>Photo: Fox 13 Tampa Bay<\/span>The screening is part of a recommendation for current and former smokers by the U.S. Preventative Task Force. Most insurance companies cover the cost, and under the Affordable Care Act, there should be no co-pay. However, many people who would benefit from this screening aren\u2019t aware this test is available: less than 4% of eligible patients<\/a> are actually getting this screening.<\/span>Swan didn\u2019t have any symptoms but agreed to get the scan. She assumed it would come back clear.<\/span>\u201cI went thinking there would be absolutely nothing wrong,\u201d she told Fox 13<\/a>, \u201cand that\u2019s when they found that I had the nodules.\u201d<\/span><\/span>Photo: Fox 13 Tampa Bay<\/span>Early-stage lung cancer doesn\u2019t have any symptoms, which is why this screening is so crucial. By the time symptoms crop up, the cancer has usually progressed to a late stage and is 12 times more likely to be fatal<\/a> within the next five years.<\/span><\/span>Lung cancer is aggressive. Even patients diagnosed at an early stage only have a five-year survival of about 55%<\/a>.<\/span>Thankfully, Swan\u2019s was caught at an early stage. The only treatment she went through was undergoing surgery to remove the tumor in her left lung<\/a>.<\/span><\/span>Photo: GoFundMe\/Second Lung Cancer Surgery<\/a><\/span>Swan continued to get scans at least twice a year to check the status of her lungs and make sure the cancer hadn\u2019t returned. She stopped smoking cigarettes and switched to E-cigarettes<\/a>, also known as vaping. (While many people think vaping is safer than smoking real cigarettes because there are less chemicals, it is not considered a safe alternative<\/a> by The American Heart Association or the Surgeon General, among others.)<\/span>For a few years, she stayed cancer-free.<\/span>Then, in March of 2020, a scan picked up something suspicious in her right lung<\/a>. There was no indication the cancer had spread, and was once again caught early. It was recommended that she undergo surgery again to remove the cancer.<\/span><\/span>Photo: GoFundMe\/Second Lung Cancer Surgery<\/span>However, the treatment was considered \u201celective\u201d since it was stage I, and so it was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The surgery was eventually rescheduled for June.<\/span>Swan underwent additional testing to check the status of the cancer before she went under the knife. That\u2019s when she got the devastating news that the cancer that had been confined to her lungs months earlier had spread to her bones, including her spine and ribs.<\/span>\u201cI went from Stage 1 to Stage 4 with a fatal swoop of a PET scan and an MRI, within just a few days,\u201d she said<\/a>. \u201cAnd I just cried and cried and cried.<\/span>\u201cHere I was trying to make sure I didn\u2019t contract COVID and all the while the cancer is just spreading because of it being an \u2018elective\u2019 surgery.\u201d<\/span><\/span>Photo: Fox 13 Tampa Bay<\/span>Swan\u2019s partner is also very sick. He\u2019s had five strokes, is on dialysis three times a week, and on top of all that, he has dementia<\/a>. He can\u2019t drive, and Swan has no living family members to rely on for support.<\/span>Swan says she is \u201cdevastated\u201d<\/a> by her diagnosis. She is undergoing a double lung resection and has set up a GoFundMe<\/a> to help pay for medical bills and give updates.<\/span>Learn more in this video.<\/span>  Share on Facebook<\/a><\/span><\/span>Source<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every cancer patient\u2019s worst fear during the COVID-19 pandemic has been that delayed treatment may cause their cancer to turn more aggressive.For Kathy Swan, that fear has been realized.Swan was first diagnosed with stage I lung cancer several years ago, when she was 55 years old. Swan went to her doctor for a routine physical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26157,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5137],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26156"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44239,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26156\/revisions\/44239"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}