Lori Shipman survived lung cancer | bronchoscopy | lobectomy | non-small cell adenocarcinoma

DESCRIPTION

Lori Shipman thought something was wrong when a persistent cough would not go away.  A chest x-ray led to a bronchoscopy, and not long after that, she was informed by telephone that she had Stage 1A lung cancer, a form of non-small cell adenocarcinoma.  After surgery, Lori recovered quickly and resumed her active, outdoorsy lifestyle.

On a vacation to Florida in September 2015, Lori Shipman started coughing and the cough persisted even after she returned to home in Wayzata, Minnesota.  Partly because of her busy schedule, it wasn’t until just before Christmas that she decided to get the cough checked out when she went to an urgent care. 

Lori underwent a chest x-ray and was diagnosed with pneumonia.  She was put on prescription medicine, then antibiotics, then a stronger dosage of medication, none of which made a difference.  Her primary care physician next called for a CT scan in March 2016, which is when they saw something in her lung.  However, the results of that scan did not reveal a clear-cut cancer diagnosis.

Lori Shipman’s PCP sent her to a pulmonologist.  He scheduled a bronchoscopy, and days later, he called Lori to tell her she had Stage 1A lung cancer, a form of non-small cell adenocarcinoma. 

Lori opted to go to the renowned Mayo Clinic in nearby Rochester, Minnesota for a second opinion.  Doctors there looked at bronchoscopy and came to the same conclusion, that she had lung cancer.  They had a very aggressive plan for surgery, to which Lori agreed.  Before the procedure, there had to be a battery of tests and a PET scan.  Eventually they were completed and a date for the surgery was set. 

The procedure was a lobectomy.  It was her right lower lobe that they went in and removed, a successful surgery. All of Lori’s margins were clear and she was staged at 1A, which is very rare in the world of lung cancer.

Although the surgery was successful, its aftermath was difficult.  She was in pain with every breath she took, but eventually her care team was able to get the pain under control.  In the meantime, Lori tried eating in a healthy way and surrounding herself with love from family and friends.

Lori is happy to report that within six weeks, she was able to go back to work, and in her leisure time, she cold swim and go on walks.  At first, once reaching survivorship, she was wary about the cancer returning, but once she reached the five-year mark, she became increasingly hopeful abut the future.

By way of advice, Lori Shipman says one should listen to their body.  Lori says if you feel like something is wrong, then something is wrong.  She adds that even if yo lack medical training, the best advocate for you, is you.

Additional Resources:

Support Group:

A Breath of Hope Lung Foundation: https://www.abreathofhope.org

TRANSCRIPT

Bruce Morton: Greetings and welcome to the @CancerInterviews podcast.  I’m your host, Bruce Morton.  What began as a persistent cough for our guest led to a diagnosis of lung cancer; but because she made sure to get the problem checked out in full, she survived.  She is Lori Shipman of Wayzata, Minnesota.  She took the bull by the horns and hopes that if you are in a similar position, you will respond in the same way.  So, let’s hear Lori tell her story.  Lori, welcome to Cancer Interviews.

Lori Shipman: Hi, and thanks for having me, Bruce.

BM: Lori, we want to start off the way we always start off, in that we want to learn more about you.  So, if you would, tell us where you are from, what you do for work, and when you have time, what you do for fun.

LS: Sure.  I am married.  I have three college age kids, so life is a little busy for us right now.  I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, so I am from the East Coast.  Grew up there, went to Penn State and then went to Florida for my first job, and have kind of moved around the country a little bit.  My husband is from Minnesota, so we have been here for about 18 years, here in the Minneapolis area.  What I do for work is, I am an HR professional, so Human Resources is the field I have always been involved with, and I have my own HR consulting practice right now, so I help clients with all things HR-related.  On the fun side, what I love to do, Minnesota is a very outdoorsy state, so we spend a lot of time outside.  I love to kayak, the lakes are a big part of our life, so boating jet skis, kayaks, paddleboards, anything to be on the water, and hiking, going for walks, I used to swim competitively, and I really enjoy yoga, and cooking is another big passion area.

BM: What is your favorite type of cuisine?

LS: Doesn’t matter to me.  My family has a lot of Italian roots, so we to go back to all things Italian, but we love to try diverse, different recipes and try different cookbooks, and we actually put together our first family cookbook this last holiday season, so that was a super fun project to do.

BM: Now, I have to tell you.  It wasn’t for a very long time, but I briefly lived in Pittsburgh, and I know that many people who live there have a certain accent.  It sounds as though you have lost yours.

LS: I can say you’ns, and downtown and right up the house, it all comes back pretty easily.

BM: Let’s move along.  It sounds like with all the outdoorsy stuff you do, prior to your diagnosis, you were in pretty good health, yes?

LS: Absolutely.

BM: So, I am guessing you would notice when something wasn’t normal.  When did you notice something of that nature?

LS: I have an interesting story.  My sister, my aunt and I traveled to Florida in September of 2015, and we were down there to clean out my parents’ home.  It was very dusty and the three of us were in that house for a couple days.  For some reason, I really did not do well in that environment, I developed my cough there.  My sister and my aunt did just fine, but it was really from that point in time on, that I had this cough that would just not go away.  I really did not feel good when I was inside that home for a couple days.

BM:  So, what led you to seek medical attention?

LS: I didn’t, probably like most people initially.  I was a busy mom, I was working, I had kids, so I had a cough.  I kinda waited it out through the fall, I thought it would go away.  I thought at times it would go away, but at other times it would be worse, but as the fall went on, I really didn’t feel well overall.  I was tired, this cough was really annoying, and it was right before Christmas when I finally concluded that I needed to get this checked out, so I went to urgent care as my first stop.

BM: And what happened after that?

LS: They listened to me, checked out my chest and said they should get an x-ray.  I was diagnosed with pneumonia, put on prescription medicine and told to come back, and see my primary care doctor and come back in a few weeks.  So, I did a full round of the antibiotics, but it really didn’t make a difference at all.  My primary care doctor then changed up the medicine, tried something different to hit it a little bit harder, then told me to just wait and see, but again I still didn’t feel well.  So, I went back a third time and that’s when they said, let’s look a bit further and they ran the first CT scan, which is when they really saw something in my lung.

BM: I am guessing there was still a lengthy chain of events what you just described and your diagnosis.  If you would, describe that chain of events.

LS: It was a lengthy process, so it was the middle of December when I went the first time, and it was the beginning of March that they finally ran that CT scan to find something.  I didn’t feel any better with each of the medications they had tried with me.  I am a big advocate, you will probably hear me say it a couple times that listening to your body is so important, and if you don’t feel well, you don’t feel well.  If you are not feeling well and getting results, you just have to continue to advocate, and I think it would have been really easy for me to just not do anything and wait it out and go longer and longer.  But with cancer diagnosis, you want to catch it as quickly as possible.  Really staying active in your health care is really, really important.

BM: So, what is the thing that triggered your being told that you in fact had lung cancer?

LS: It was not a clear-cut diagnosis. It was a rollercoaster ride.  From there I had the CT scan, and they said something showed up on here, we’re not sure what it is, so we are sending you to a pulmonologist.  I had to schedule that appointment, went to see the pulmonologist, went through all of the history and at that point in time, I do remember having the conversation with the pulmonologist.  I mentioned that our family had been in Arizona, in the Grand Canyon area the year before, so he really probed hard about exactly where we were and what kind of experience it was.  He thought I might have contracted some odd type of fungus that was out there, so we went down that pathway a little bit.  At one time I remember hearing the pulmonologist say by way of a diagnosis, he was going to start at the top of this list then work our way down.  I asked what is at the bottom of the list.  He said it’s a long list and he didn’t want to talk about what’s at the bottom, but I said I wanted to know what is at the bottom.  That’s when I said for the first time that the last thing they will look for is lung cancer, but that I don’t have any of the signs that we should even be concerned about that, so he said we should go through the list and check off all these boxes.  So, when looking for different types of infections, everything came back negative on all of those tests, so I was scheduled for a bronchoscopy, and again, the pulmonologist was fully anticipating that something odd was going to show up in there; but I got the call that everybody doesn’t want to hear, when he called and said he was so sorry to tell me that I have lung cancer in the form of non-small cell adenocarcinoma.  I didn’t even know what that was.  I was alone at that time, my kids were all at school, my husband was working, so it was a scary place to be to get that terrible news.  I did have my primary care doctor, who called me immediately, probably within 20 minutes of getting that phone call, and he was very helpful in explaining to me what it was, giving me some more information in a place so I could at least start to process what this could possibly mean.  I actually got that call about three days before we were about to leave for spring break.  My kids at the time were 17, 16 and 14, so we were in the throes of high school.  We had a big spring break trip planned to go down to Florida, and I got that call.  My immediate thing is do we go, do we not go, everything just stops at a time when you get a call like that. 

BM: Obviously, it is bad news, this much we know, and there is no training manual in terms of telling those closest to you about this terrible news.  So, I suspect you were winging when you shared this news with your husband and your family.  How difficult was that?

LS: It was very difficult to share that news.  Again, it was such a shock as to what the diagnosis was, that even when I said it, I am not sure they understood it at the time.  Obviously, my husband knew right away.  We waited a day with the kids because when I received the news, they had just gotten home from school and thankfully they were headed to a church event that night.  Again, I look at the blessings that happen in life.  They were surrounded with a lot of people of faith that night that became rocks for them through this process.  Obviously, I had to tell the kids, tell them the news about what this looks like.  It was heartbreaking for them to hear.  They were very scared and of course at that time, we didn’t have a lot of answers, either; the kids wanted to know, and we had lost their grandmother a couple years before to breast cancer.  So, in their mind, a cancer diagnosis meant that I wasn’t going to make it in this process.  It was a very emotional time for all of us to work through it, and each kid is so different in how they process that information, so I learned a lot about each of my kiddos in terms of  how they communicate and what’s important to them, and we have all learned a lot going through this whole, entire journey we have been on together, but it’s hard for kids to process as it was for me going through the challenges of it.

BM: Speaking of challenges, next up for you is the treatment.  Describe what treatment was like for this particular diagnosis.

LS: The rollercoaster continued for me.  I went to see a surgeon.  They looked at it, and they weren’t quite sure they were looking at lung cancer.  Again, it was back to yes, no, stop, go.  We could wait and see, we could go in, and at that time I decided to get a second opinion, and was able to get seen at the Mayo Clinic (in Rochester, Minnesota), which was close to us, thankfully.  We got in and once they took a look at the slides, they said absolutely, without a doubt, we know what we are looking at, we have seen this before, it is lung cancer, and we are going in to get it.  They had a very aggressive plan which was surgery, and I should say, too, there are all these steps you have to take to prep for surgery, other PET scans they have to put you through and these tests that have to be done.  So, even if they say they are going in with all this surgery, there are still all these tests that had to be done.  Then there were flags that came up on those tests, which you just have to work through.  Does it go, does it stop?  I remember talking to my surgeon when she got all the tests back and she said she could perform the surgery in two weeks.  I told her once I got this news that we would go ahead with the surgery, and she said, okay, we would do it tomorrow.  We scheduled it very, very quickly.  So, mine was a lobectomy, it was my right lower lobe that they went in and removed.  I had a very successful surgery.  My margins were all clear, and I was staged at 1A, which I know is very rare in the lung cancer world. 

BM: So, we’re talking about your surgery now, and as the recipient, the one going through this, what was the toughest part?

LS: Probably coming out of lung surgery, breathing is difficult, you realize how much you breath, how frequently you breath, and it is very painful, you know, having drainage tubes in and things like that.  Just those first couple days were pretty rough, and then coming home, it was just every day, practicing gratitude, eating healthy, walking one step further, stay one step ahead of the pain, surrounding myself with positive things, with family and friends and lots of love.

BM: In terms of pain describe how the pain was, on a scale of one to ten.

LS: It was a ten initially until they could get it under control.  I can remember laying there, watching the clock and minutes seemed like hours, again just trying to breath and take breaths.  It’s painful.  Once they got the pain under control it got a lot better.

BM: Obviously there is nothing pleasant about any form of cancer, but I want to throw a pleasant aspect into this story of yours, and that is the support from within your four walls.  You had just mentioned how each of your three children were different, and then there’s your husband.  Does that also mean that from them you received four different types of support?

LS: It certainly did.  I have an aunt who is a nurse, and she came and stayed with me at the Mayo, super thankful to have had her at my bedside as kinda my own personal nurse, but lots of friends and family that came to take care of me after the surgery.  Kids had to go to school, people had to go to work.  It took a village, and I am very grateful to those people who were that part of my life.

BM: And when did the pain start to taper off, when did you feel like you were inching you way back to normalcy?

LS: What’s amazing about the lung is the recovery process is quick.  Within six weeks I was going back to work, I was walking, I was able to get back into the pool and swim again.  I ran the 5K for the A Breath of Hope Lung Foundation in August after having surgery in May.  So, the lung is an amazing organ in terms of how the body can heal and recover from surgery.  So, I don’t know if there was a point in time, it was just every day it got a little bit better.

BM: But I am guessing there was a point in which you saw survivorship as a reality.  What was that like?

LS: Initially with the cancer diagnosis I had a very difficult time forward thinking or just planning for the future because I was just so plugged into today.  I was thankful for today, but I really didn’t know what tomorrow was going to bring.  I have seen a shift in my mental state about that, of looking forward now.  I am five years out from my surgery, so that window gets better and more hopeful every day, but that’s a journey.

BM: I just want to clear up one thing you had mentioned earlier because you had mentioned it very briefly and we are going to talk more about it in just a couple minutes, but you had mentioned A Breath of Hope.  The Breath of Hope is the A Breath of Hope Lung Foundation, located in the Twin Cities, Wayzata to be specific, where you live, and we want to talk about that.  I have interviewed some of the people who make up the A Breath of Hope family, and what I have heard from them, and I know this is a theme with which you are familiar, is that you don’t just snap your finger and get screened for lung cancer.  I am a prostate cancer survivor, and I didn’t have to do a thing.  I found out I was a candidate for prostate cancer because of just normal blood work.  I didn’t have to ask anybody to do anything, but it is almost a completely different story within the lung cancer experience.  Now that you know not only what you went through, but you also what other people within the lung cancer community have gone through, to what degree are sad, angry, frustrated, maybe all of the above, at how difficult it is to ascertain that information?  Even in your case, you didn’t get that information right away, and for others it is even tougher.

LS: It is frustrating when you look at the statistics.  Lung cancer kills more people than breast cancer, prostate cancer and colon cancer, combined.  Yet you just don’t hear it talked about.  Anybody can get it.  I never, ever thought I would say the words, “I have lung cancer.”  You know, there is also the whole stigma side that goes with lung cancer as well, so there is a lot there that we are working towards, but I would say it is hopeful to see the progress that is being made, and one of the things we are very hopeful for in the research world is that there will be some type of screening, just like mammography or prostate, where anybody can get screened for lung cancer, maybe when they hit 40 or when they hit some threshold, because we know if we catch it early that the statistics are great; but we have to catch it early and lung cancer can be silent for a very long time.

BM: Well, let’s hope that day comes soon because it cannot come soon enough, and at this point I want to ask you about A Breath of Hope, the A Breath of Hope Lung Foundation, and first of all, Lori, how did you find out about it?

LS: That’s a great story.  When I heard the story, obviously my family knew about the diagnosis, but I really had a shell up to the outside world about it.  I mentioned the stigma.  I’ve never smoked, but the first question I get when someone learns I had lung cancer was, “I didn’t know you smoked,” or, “When did you smoke?”  That part of it was really hard, so initially, I really kept the news to myself; but when I came out and kind of shared on Facebook that I had had this diagnosis, I have gone through the surgery and put it out there, I had a friend reach out who said they knew somebody who had the exact same thing as you and they wanted to connect me to her.  Again, I was kind of hesitant at first, this was someone I didn’t know, but it turned to be somebody at A Breath of Hope, and I remember the day I met her, and it was like breathing in hope, literally, because she was able to point me towards people that had been in a similar situation as I, there was a support group there, there were resources available and I could start to educate myself and learn a lot more about lung cancer, and I have become very involved with that foundation since then, but those people are just near and dear to my heart because provided a family and an area of safety to talk about something that can just be difficult with the rest of the world.

BM: Before we go any farther about A Breath of Hope, there is a web address for the foundation.  What is it?

LS: It’s www.abreathofhope.org

BM: Continuing about A Breath of Hope, Lori, what are some of the things that A Breath of Hope can do for someone who has been freshly diagnosed with lung cancer or someone who has learned that might be diagnosed with lung cancer?

LS: The one thing they have put out in the last couple years is called a Patient Portal.  This portal is an amazing place to go for information.  So, when you get a diagnosis, you want to run to the Internet, and just starting googling, but there is so much information out there about lung cancer, and sometimes it can be really hard to read all the information that is out there.  This Patient Portal has been a great resource that just went out a couple years ago.  If you are looking for information just in general about lung cancer and the different kinds of lung cancers, the different type of treatment options that are out there, because we do know if you have certain mutations, different treatment options work really well for this type of cancer, so being able to have a space where you can go that has really solid, good technical information, you are going to find that through the Patient Portal.  So, that would be number one, but number two, the support groups that are there are a great way to network with people that have been in your shoes, and you can share your stories; and then there are also resources for people who need rides getting to and from treatments and support in that way, that’s available to patients as well.  So, they can find all of that on the website.

BM: And, so whereas A Breath of Hope began as an organization providing its services predominantly to those in and around the Twin Cities, thanks to the pandemic and the ensuing Zoom calls, I would guess the Foundation now extends its services across the nation and around the world, yes?

LS: Yes, absolutely, and our director has been at some international events, and the Foundation has been highlighted there as well.  I would say A Breath of Hope is now available around the globe.  We have had people checking out that Patient Portal, and again, it’s a great spot to get some good, solid technical information.

BM: Lori, you have talked about the swimming, the hiking, the kayaking and some other things that I have probably left out in terms of the physical activities that you take on.  At this stage, is there anything you did pre-diagnosis that you cannot do now?

LS: Not at all.

BM: Well, that is fantastic news for someone diagnosed with lung cancer, knowing that your outcome can be theirs.  At this point, we want to wrap things up and we always to end our interviews the same way, with the following question: If you were one-on-one with someone who had just been diagnosed with lung cancer or have learned lung cancer could be a possibility, if you had a message for them and that message had one overarching point, what would it be?

LS: Yeah, there are a lot of things I would like to say to that person.  I would say take a deep breath, you’re not alone, there are a lot of people who have walked this road before you, and I would say you should listen to your body.  You are the biggest advocate for yourself to make sure that you get the medical treatment that you need, make sure you are gathering the information that you need to make the best decision available to you.

BM: That is a wonderful overarching point, something your listeners should take seriously and act on.  Lori, you have had a tremendous story to share with us, we really appreciate it, a story with lots of information, and one more time, if you would, provide us that address for A Breath of Hope.

LS: It’s www.abreathofhope.org

BM: That’s very simple, and once there, there are numerous directions they can go in, whoever logs onto that, numerous directions they can go to find all manner of information in terms of helping them with their lung cancer journey.  So, Lori, thanks so much for the time, thanks so much for sharing with us.

LS: Absolutely.  Take care.

BM: And that’s going to wrap up this episode of Cancer Interviews.  We hope what you heard can be of aid to yourself or a loved one, and as Lori said, within the cancer journey, you are not alone.  So, until next time, we will see you down the road.

Support Group:

A Breath of Hope Lung Foundation

www.abreathofhope.org

SHOW NOTES

TITLE: Lori Shipman, Lung Cancer Survivor – Wayzata, Minnesota, USA

Lori Shipman is a survivor of Stage 1A lung cancer. Her journey began with a persistent cough, and after a lengthy chain of events came her diagnosis. But she survived Non-small Cell Adenocarcinoma, and has returned to an active lifestyle, including swimming, kayaking and running. 

Additional Resources:

Cancer Interviews: http://www.cancerinterviews.com

A Breath of Hope Lung Foundation: http://www.abreathofhope.org

Time Stamps:

04:10 Started coughing persistently.

05:20 Lori visited urgent care and had her chest x-rayed.

06:37 A lengthy chain of events led to her lung cancer diagnosis.

09:23 Remembers being informed by phone that she had cancer.

13:09 Lori sought a second opinion, which led to a lobectomy.

15:31 Describes the toughest part of the surgery.

16:19 The level of post-surgery pain.

18:30 Lori says the recovery process was quick.

KEYWORDS (tags):

lung cancer

cancer

bronchoscopy

cancerinterviews.com

non-small cell adenocarcinoma

bruce morton

lobectomy

lori shipman