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Our prayers are with you. I hope you have a speedy recovery. May God heal and bless you

My prayers will also be with you guys.
Len

diseases

Steve..just wanted you to know that you are in my prayers and I will be pulling for you to go into complete remission. My Mom was older (80) when she was first diagonosed with Lymphoma and one of the first questions she posed to the oncologist at Wake Forrest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem was "What causes this disease?" He had a rather rehearsed answer that went something like this "Right now most oncologist conclude the the increased used of pesticides and herbecides in our society seem to be the cause". This was seven years ago and many advances in the treatment and possible cure have of this disease have been made. You didn't mention if your disease was Hodgkins or non-Hodgkins lymphoma and what stage your disease was in. There are some great doctors out there and remember education is sometimes a real key to beating this thing. Keep the optimism up and you can beat it. I would not be too sure that your profession is the cause of your diesease, although it is more prevlant in men than women. There are lots of factors that play into this. I know of two other men near your age who are undergoing chemotherpy treatments at present time. Both are handling it quiet well.

Oh Dam, that bites Humid One and Steve. best of luck to the both of you. My biggest fear is the new freons like Puron. I hear that during human testing the mice always developed cancer. wear those cheap plastic surgical gloves, avoid that yellow looking crap at all costs. the Ozone will survive you will not.
I also will always wonder about all that fiberglass from ductboard, I used to cut it by hand daily. on a sunny day you could see that garbage hang in the air like cancer sticks waiting to stick to the lining of your lungs.

Once again, fight the good fight and good luck boys.

Originally posted by on-time
Just found out yesterday that I have lymphoma
Wear long sleves, long pants, gloves, dust masks, etc. Which is of course hard for me to do in Dallas Texas with its 130 degree attics. Also who knows how many awful virus' are on A/C coils? Prayers would be welcome. Thanks, Steve (48 years old, technician 31 years).

Sorry to hear of this illness in your body, Steve.
We can pray for you and your family.


Did you ever live in Alhambra? Did you have a brother named Gilbert?

What is a PET Scan?

thehumid1 was wondering what a PET scan is- as far as I know (not an expert), it is a Positron Emission Tomography scan. The patient is injected with a sort of radioactive (faintly) compound bound to glucose (usually). As cells use up the glucose, positrons are released, which when they collide with electrons release energy. The machine reads the amount and location of this energy and represents the glucose uptake (therefore metabolic activity of cells). Normal cells use up glucose, but tumors/cancers are much more active and use it faster, therefore the docs can see if/where something is wrong. It is also used to look at brain activity and other things too.

Best wishes to the two of you guys. Now, however, these illnesses are much more treatable than they were even ten years ago, so good luck and hang in there!

steve...thoughts and prayers go out to you and your family....i take stuff like this for granted,i never even thought of something like this happening as i'm sure you probably did not either...some of the places this work takes us are bad enviroments to say the least.....and i say this is even more reason for us to be well compensated for the work we do...there are all kinds of hazards with this work and something like this is one more thing for us to be aware of....hang in there steve,never give up and never give in.....fight the fight-you can do it-medical treatment is advancing all the time and the cure for this may be right around the corner..........may god bless you and be with you steve.......mo-flo.

I dont know I will ask the doctor again on the 14th my jaw kinda dropped when I found out and he was talking about different scenarios and forms of treatment if it is lymphoma it was hard to follow. I hope all goes well for you I will pray for you

Sorry to hear that. Remember never give up,`the mind is a powerful weapon. Fight hard, fight now, fight forever.

Thanks for the prayers guys.
Thehumid1; I never heard of a petscan. Are you sure that is the correct name? It sounds like something a pet would have done to them.
MDP; Wow, you have been through alot from the hazards of this industry. Thanks for sharing your conditions so that others can take precautions.

My sincerest sympathy. Few of us realize it but we are exposed on a regular basis to elements that can cause serious physical harm to us. Many years ago I lost 3 monthes to an infection that damned near killed me. The doctor (a good friend of mine) expresed concern about the places that our trade places us. Since then it's been surgical masks around dust and debris. Another episode resulting from a small scratch ended with another hospital stay for a blood infection. Serious illness in our trade is in reality just a minor incident away.

Hey Man , my best to you and your family , my Prayers are with you , put it all in Gods hands and He'll see you through , my best God bless. Lost in HVAC.

Steve,

I will keep you in my prayers as well.

You are scaring me .... back in May I was pretty sick with what they thought was a virus they did a cat scan told me I had enlarged lymph nodes 2.6 cm and my doctor said that they should be only 1/4 inch July 14 they going to see if they are stilll that way and if so they want me to get a petscan? what exactly is that?

Wow, I don't know what to say. Thank you Steve for providing this sobering and important information with us. You've got friends here.

don

Thanks for your prayers guys. I currenty have 4 tumors that I can see since the doctor showed them to me a month ago. I never saw them on my own because I never inspected my body for lumps. Since last month they have grown from peanut size to about the size of a quarter and of course are easy to see even if I wasn't looking for them.

I feel fine but some people will have noticable sysmptoms. Found this cancer by an annual health exam which I highly recommend to everyone even if you are young and feeling great. They can find the cancer in the blood sample that they take during the exam.

I also recommend for people to inspect their body for any lumps about once a week, which will help you catch cancer early. Get to know your body and what it is suppose to look like and what is abnormal. There is no cure for this and the median age of survival is about 8 years of which treatment will usualy put it into remission and then it comes back where treatment is needed again and again until it kills you.

So be careful out there and even if you are in perfect healh and take exceptionaly well care of yourself, our work conditions do put us around some dangerous viruses that can cause cancer or infections that are not treatable. I don't mean to scare anyone but don't think you are healthy just because you feel great and take well care of your body.
For example; my brother-in-law caught a super-virus that no antibiotic will kill and he will definitely lose his leg in another year or two due to the infection in it.

In closing don't forget protecting yourself from inhaling brazing or soldering fumes because that could also lead to lymphoma (blood borne cancer).

Hey Steve. Your note stirred something in me. Perhaps it's just the "that could be me factor". With all the times I've crawled houses and blown all sorts of crap out of my nose after, it makes me wonder what I'm doing to myself. In any event, I'll be praying for you tonight. God is the great physician. With his help and some good doctors down here you can beat it.

I'm really sorry to hear about the news, we'll be sure to keep you in our prayers!

Kinda hits home when your seemingly safe HVAC job can become a life threatening job. Give it a good fight!

Steve, thats sucks. I learned long ago about some of the dangers of the animal urine, waste and remains from my chimney and dryer work. Then I learned about the lead and Asbestos in older buildings HVAC, then phosgene, mold, legionaires, soot and carbon etc etc etc.... Now I take nothing for granted and even bought my own really good respirator when the boss wouldn't. I carry good gloves and coveralls for the needed times when it just isn't worth it.

Having seen you around many sites for more then awhile now I can honestly say I will keep you in my prayers. We all need to remember the dangers this trade contains over a lifetime of work and hopefully the rookies of today will not have to learn our lessons the hard way.

Very sorry to hear about that. We'll pray for your recovery. I just went to a customer's the other day who had lymphoma, and made a fairly speedy, full recovery with chemo. She's about 70 years old.