No one survives life’s toughest challenges alone. Sometimes we have our family, friends and medical professionals by our side to help us. And sometimes, the most important thing we can do is learn from other stories of survival. When we meet people who have not only experienced something similar but actually came through it better and stronger, it provides hope and inspiration. We invite you to Share your Story of “Surviving & Thriving.” Your words could be just the thing someone needs to keep moving forward. Share the gift of hope.

Submitted by Sylvia McMenamin:

In 2010, I was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer and was being scheduled to have palliative treatment. I told the oncologist that I wanted to fight it. I was not a smoker. My doctor looked at my x-ray and said he only saw cancer in the left lung.

So my doctor did another biopsy on my right lung and found the small spot to be a hamartoma, a benign tumor. Then he told me that the cancer was possibly only stage II.

Dr. Herrera did surgery on my left lung, but found cancer in some of the nodes, so he took additional hours to save a part of one of my left lobes. It turned out that my cancer was stage III.

After surgery, I had radiation, chemotherapy, and follow-up.

It has been over two years since my surgery and all of my scans have been good. Thank goodness!

Thank you for sharing your story, Sylvia! To read more stories of survival, click here to visit our Your Stories page.