Good morning Kathy and welcome to the Lung Cancer group. With PMR you certainly don't need one more thing, do you? I was a heavy smoker and was not surprised at the news. However, no matter if you have suspicions or not I was definitely shocked at hearing those words. How are you dealing with this?

You do have a head start in being familiar with medical care and illness. This will help you with your journey. Two possible next steps will be a PET scan and a biopsy. Biopsies aren't always needed nor advised in some cases and there are varied reasons for this. In the 6 lung cancers that I have had, I've only had 1 biopsy as a tool for diagnosis. And I am very thankful for the caution taken with this.

But PET scans are a wonderful tool for confirming cancer suspicion. Be prepared to spend some time at the hospital when you have a PET. There is a lot of protocol surrounding the injection and wait time (usually an hour or so) paperwork, etc. You might have already had one for other reasons so this might be a moot point.

Do you have dates set for the PET scan as yet?