.. I am scared if I have lung cancer, if the treatment is going to cost a fortune and cripple my family and if that means a sure death, I don't know what I would do, I don't want to make my loveones suffer with me, I can't ..


I am serious in this post, if something sounds a little too extreme, I am not faking it. I've also heard from someone that if you smoke for long time, and you suddenly quit, you will die, which I kind of believe, thinking that body cannot adjust sudden stop of cigarettes and the cells start to become cancer cells.


Hello, I am 25 years old, I have been a heavy smoker for about 10 years. Like many young people when I was in my teenage, I thought I was invincible, and always think "it won't be me", i've used drugs before and they were ones that had to be smoked, I quitted drugs after I turned 18, since then I smoked a lot.


I had my health checked before for immigration purposes, and did a chest x-ray, the doctor said there was something up with the x-ray and kept it for further investigations, later the said it was okay, as in, it satisfied the immigration department, they have no rules that will not let anyone with lung cancer entering or living in the country. This was one year ago.


The aim of the x-ray was to find nasty decease like pneumonia or something that would infect others, when I asked the doctor what was wrong with it, he said it seemed to be abnormal, but they wouldn't give me anymore information, I don't understand, why the doctors always just tell us very limited information =( anyway, I had cought up small amount of blood in the past, for a few weeks, on and off for a month or two, and light-red-colored-saliva in my spit, which I wasn't sure if it was just my gum problem or it was from my chest, I am really scared to get it checked again....


Sometimes I feel sharp pain in my chest, but it's quite complicated, because I have chest bone problem, probably birth defect, so if I lie on my chest for a while or on my arm for awhile I would get this very sharp pain as if someone stab me in the chest with really big knife, and it would last for an hour with the pain slowly decrease. I feel pins and needles sometimes usually in my arms and feets, or close to my biceps. I have been playing a lot of sports, soccer, basketball, running, gym, until I was about 17 or 18, then I quitted sports and started doing martial arts, until late last year because the guys at the club were too big and they had damaged my spine by throwing themselves (85, 95, up to 100 kg) on my back and body.


Would lung cancer definitely means death? Or means that one side of the lungs will have to go? Are the cost of the operation expensive beyond an average guy can afford? I 've heard that there are 3 stages of lung cancer, what are the chances of a person in any stages?


And what would a person become if he / she survived lung cancer successfully from operation in stages of lung cancer.


All of a sudden I have a family, have all these dreams of having my own house, car, and babies, life just suddenly becomes so precious and what a fool I am, suddenly I realise I am no longer invincible, tens of thousands of cigarettes I had in the past are scaring the hell out of me.


What are signs of cancer in each stage? I have had about 7 x-ray done this year, none was anything to do with lung, would getting another x-ray done to check if I have lung cancer do any harm?


Say, I smoke 1 packet a day for 10 years:
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(356 days) x (20 per packett) = 7120 cigarettes per year
(7120 cigarettes per year) x (10 years) = 71,200 cigarettes in 10 years

with some occasion of extra packetts:
------------------------------------------ --
(say 356 days) / (third of a year) = 118.66 packetts in additions to above
(118.66 packetts) x (20 per packett) = 2,373.20 cigarettes per year
(2,373.20 cigarettes per year) x (10 years) = 23,732 cigarettes in 10 years

total cigarettes smoked in the past 10 years:
------------------------------------------ ------------
(71,200 for 1 packett everyday) (23,732 for extra packetts) = 94,932 cigarettes for the past 10 years of smoking.


I hope I have chances =( it could be less, but wouldn't be much less really, but I am pretty sure it can't be more than the figure above.


All input are greatly appreciated.