![]() ![]() "That was pretty frightening," he said, because although it was always a possibility, he hadn't expected it to spread so quickly. He initially got the all-clear in October 2017 "which was amazing", but when he went for retesting three months later, he discovered the cancer had spread to his brain. James was subsequently treated with seven courses of chemotherapy and six months of radiotherapy. Marie Keating Foundation December 16, 2020 As well as input from experts such as it also contains stories from lung cancer patients & survivors. Our new lung cancer booklet is available now - download it from our website or email to order a hard copy. Looking back, he said he was the "archetype" of the stereotypical person who avoided doing all the right things when he first developed symptoms. "It was like the world fell apart because it wasn't on my agenda. "But the minute I mentioned I was coughing up blood, he said no, I'm going to refer you, its probably nothing but I'm going to refer you to a chest specialist and get this looked into."įollowing his visit to the specialist, James got the "worst possible diagnosis" that he had stage three lung cancer. "When I did end up going to my GP it was kind of on that basis, and I was expecting to walk away with a prescription for some antibiotics," he added. James thought the health problems must be attributed to something more benign and believed it was a chest infection that would clear itself. He started coughing up blood and when he searched his symptoms online and the results showed lung cancer, he didn't believe that could be the issue. James explained that he didn't want to "make a fuss" or "be a burden" which attributed to his reluctance to go to his doctor. "But the fact that I was a non-smoker and I was relatively young, something as serious as it turned out was never on the horizon. "I put it down to a lot of things, getting older or the kids picking things up from school, but just looking back, gradually I was getting more and more under the weather and not able to shake things off," James said. He went to his GP to check whether he might have adult-onset asthma and began using an inhaler, but started picking up more coughs and cold than normal and which would linger. He told Alive and Kicking with Clare McKenna that in 2016, he began to feel slightly wheezy after exercising and accounted the cough to hayfever, which he has always had, getting worse. James is asking people to not make the same mistake as him, and is raising awareness of the Marie Keating Foundation's cough checker phoneline to help catch lung cancer. ![]()
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