Have you (personally) known anyone that had lung cancer? Do you remember what their initial symptoms were?

My grandma was just diagnosed.

She found out from a routine check-up. She’s felt no pain or anything, but they initially thought it was something with the lymph nodes, but it led back to lung cancer.

Yes. Lung mets. They thought it was asthma at first. The fun bit now is finding the primary.

My Dad is going to be 71 in a month. He’s been a smoker since his teens. This past week he complained about headaches, then chest pains, the last 5 days he has had a lot of congestion, is weak, wheezy, and is complaining about a sore mouth/jaw. He is getting in to see his doctor on Monday. When talking to him, he seems worried, as if something isn’t right to him, (feels like more than just your common cold/flu. And, he’s had pneumonia before, and he said this is not the same). Lately, he has lost quite a few friends to illness and my Dad’s not young, himself. He said to me today that he hopes that whatever he has has nothing to do with his years of smoking.

My mother has been fighting cancer for 19 years. It has run in the family, and her mother also died of that, so she took regular tests. I think it was during one of them that she discovered a lump in her breast. She has undergone several operations (the last one a week ago) and of course the tumors have been moving around a bit, and she’s on a regular cocktail of drugs which she has to change every now and then.

A cousin got lung cancer at the age of 27. He was a heavy smoker and died within a few months. His first symptoms were asthma and coughing, but he smoked so much that they did not seem unusual at the time.

My aunt (on my dad’s side though) died of lung cancer. Back then the methods weren’t as sophisticated and she got diagnosed pretty late (she never smoked, so she didn’t think regular tests were necessary). I think her first symptoms were chest pains.

My friends mother had it. Apparently she was getting sick often, with colds or whatever, and my friends boyfriend told her to see a doctor. She had advanced lung cancer and did within six months of her diagnosis :(

One of my brothers-in-law died Thursday. The service is tomorrow. He was almost 60. I found out today that it was lung cancer that had metastasized and finally got him. He’d also had diabetes and hadn’t been an exerciser. He was a long-time smoker, and in March he was given a final prognosis of six months. He’d already been suffering for a year. His first signs were difficulty breathing, wheezing and really torso-rattling coughs. Also, he was obese, which didn’t help matters.

I have known two people who had lung cancer. Both were smokers and both started off with a nasty “wet” cough and shortness of breath. One lived for several years after having one lung removed and undergoing both chemo and radiation. The other went into a deep depression when he heard the diagnosis and died within a month, before they could even start any sort of treatment.

Neither man felt any sort of chest pain per se, but both thought they might have severe bronchitis or pneumonia.

My father’s case at first seemed like asthma, with coughing, congestion, shortness of breath, and a feeling of tightness in the chest. It sounded so much like the bronchial asthma I was having at the time that I was really fooled. When it took too long to clear up, my sister dragged him to the doctor, and they found out the truth.

My husband’s case was silent and imperceptible. It was discovered by accident in the course of a routine check for something else. But it was not caught early. It was on the verge of inoperable.

My father’s treatment failed. My husband’s, two decades later, succeeded.

@jmah My father, too, was diagnosed at the age of 71. He smoked for 58 years. He was in for a routine checkup, but when his doctor came in, he said, “Tell me how long you’ve been coughing up blood.” My father hadn’t told anyone but my mother at that time. They did x-rays and found a spot on his lung.

Looking back, prior to his diagnosis, he started slowing down a bit and had a pain in his shoulder, but nothing that really seemed like lung cancer, other than his gradual loss of lung capacity over the 58 years of smoking.

Shortly after the lung cancer was fixed up (by removing half of one lung), he had an aortic aneurysm diagnosed and fixed, and most recently, a quadruple bypass. Smoking is one of the risk factors for all of his problems.

my best friend had a light, annoying cough and her arm hurt all the time, She thought she had bursitis. She was a non smoker but her husband smoked a lot and they lived in a small house. then he got cancer too, kidney cancer, she died 2 years later, he;s still alive.this was 15 yrs ago.