Friday, February 21st I was taking my CNA skills exam when I had a nasty coughing fit. It lasted about 5 minutes and very shortly after I had this sharp pain in my ribs and up to my breast and under my collar bone. I called my dad (cause I do anytime there’s an inconvenience in my life) and he said it sounded like I cracked a rib. I thought that made sense and I made a doctors appointment for Monday. By the time I got home 2 hours after, the pain was pretty unbearable. I didn’t leave my couch all weekend except twice a day to go to the bathroom and even then I’d cry just from walking and sitting on the toilet. Monday comes around and I make my way to the doctors and get some X-rays done. They found a large mass on my lung, my oxygen was at 88 and my pulse was at 156. The doctor came in and let me know what was going on, and that they’d be transporting me to Hendrick medical center by ambulance. They got me to the emergency room where they also told me I had pretty severe pneumonia and a small nodule under the mass that they thought was Tuberculosis. I was in isolation, and on sepsis precaution. After about 6 hours in the ER, a CT scan and lots of drugs- I finally went up to a room where I stayed for 8 days. I had an additional CT scan as well as a complete bone scan. The first two doctors I saw along with the radiologists said they were not comfortable going in for biopsy because they could not identify what the mass was. After 2-3 days, they called the cardiovascular surgeon to see if he could crack the case.  He decided he would go in through my wind pipe and take a sample of enflamed nodules that had actually been there since 2012 and not gotten any bigger. He also went in through 5 entry points on my side for the robotic arm something or other (I will find the name of the actual procedure). He took a couple of samples from different places on my lung and bronchioles(I think is the word) and sent them right away for samples and all of the samples came back NEGATIVE for cancer and I was out of surgery in 3-4 hours. I also had a chest tube inserted because the doctor thought this was a hematoma. Quite a bit of blood did drain out though. I will include pics of the drain. After 4-5 more days in the hospital, I was released and under the impression that everything was gonna be just fine. I came home and have been resting. Still pretty sore and uncomfortable, but okay. Monday (March 9) I had my post-op appointment. They called me the day of and told me my appointment was being changed to an hour later so I could see the doctor instead of his PA. No big deal, I figured he just wanted to personally see how I was doing. Unfortunately at my appointment he told me that the samples were sent to Dallas for further testing and the mass came back as cancerous. They said it looks biologically identical to the cancer I had when I was 12. I have not seen an oncologist yet so we don’t have much of a game plan but after I’m fully healed from surgery I will be getting a PET CT scan of my entire body, as well as an MRI of my brain to check to see if it has metastasized anywhere else. At this point, I’m not able to get the PET CT scheduled until I get a payment plan set up since it’s such an expensive scan. My hospital bill currently is $164,000 and my ambulance bill is $800. I’m out of work and will be until my doctor clears me to work again and since CNA work is very physical, it likely won’t be very soon. Especially depending on what route they take for treatment.  I know this was long, so thank you for reading and for any donations. Thoughts and prayers are VERY appreciated. Please feel free to share.