Barbara Is Back to Exercising After Lung Cancer Treatment

At 80, Barbara Miller led an active lifestyle, walking 2.5 miles a day to stay healthy and stave off boredom. She liked to garden, care for her home, and generally stay busy.

One night in December 2023, Barbara woke with a pounding in her chest and extremely high blood pressure. Her family doctor ordered diagnostic testing to rule out a heart condition.

When a coronary calcium scan, conducted to look for calcified plaques that could lead to blockages in her heart, noted a spot in her left lung that might be cancer, Barbara was shocked. “I had no clue I had lung cancer, and that wasn’t what we were looking for,” she says.

Smoking and Lung Cancer

Barbara didn’t have any lung cancer symptoms, like coughing, wheezing, fatigue, or shortness of breath. “I didn’t have any problems breathing. I was still walking 2.5 miles in 40 minutes. Nothing had changed.”

However, she did have major risk factors. She had lived in a household with multiple smokers, and she smoked up to a pack of cigarettes a day for more than 30 years. Smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke are leading causes of lung cancer, according to the American Cancer Society.

A family history of lung cancer is another risk factor, and Barbara was well acquainted with the disease. “My mother died of lung cancer. After she died, I quit smoking. That was about 25 years ago,” Barbara says. Her aunt, husband, and father-in-law also died of complications from lung cancer.

Diagnosing and Treating Lung Cancer

Over the next few months, Barbara had appointments with cancer specialists at Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital to diagnose the lung cancer and consider treatment options.

First, she met with pulmonologist Sharon Raymond-Forde, M.D., followed by a visit with medical oncologist Fawzi Abu Rous, M.D. Barbara had poor results on a pulmonary function test that examines outgoing airflow, indicating she was not a good candidate for surgery to remove the cancer.

In May 2024, Barbara had biopsies taken during two bronchoscopies, a minimally invasive procedure that uses a long, flexible tube to look inside the lung and sample tissue. Doctors determined Barbara had stage 1 adenocarcinoma, a lung cancer that forms in the lining of the lungs. Stage 1 is early-stage cancer that hasn't spread outside the lungs or to lymph nodes.

Meeting Requirements for Surgery

Barbara then met with a radiation oncologist to discuss treatment. “He was extremely positive, and he felt he could wipe out this cancer with five radiation treatments,” she says. But her preference for treatment was surgery rather than chemotherapy or radiation.

“In my mind, the only way I was going to survive was to have this cut out of me. I was hysterical. My surgeon, Miguel Alvelo-Rivera, M.D., listened to me about my lifestyle and what I was capable of doing, and he was willing to go the extra mile and look a little further,” she says. “The most important thing a doctor can do is listen to a patient.”

Dr. Alvelo-Rivera considered Barbara’s history of daily exercise and ordered more testing to examine how her lungs functioned. Through this additional testing, he discovered that Barbara’s left lung was less functional than her right lung, a condition she may have been living with all her life without difficulty. She already relied more on her healthy right lung to breathe.

“I was always active as a kid and an adult. I was a swimmer. I never had a problem, so I would never have any reason to know one lung was smaller,” Barbara says.

Minimally Invasive Pulmonary Lobectomy

With this new information, Dr. Alvelo-Rivera believed the benefit of surgically removing the tumor outweighed the risk. “He told me I might need to live with supplemental oxygen after the surgery, but he didn’t anticipate it. He felt I could have surgery and be fine,” Barbara says.

On July 17, 2024, Dr. Alvelo-Rivera performed a minimally invasive lobectomy to remove the entire lower lobe (section) of Barbara’s left lung. He used video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery to remove the cancer with a tiny camera and small instruments while sparing surrounding healthy tissue.

Minimally invasive surgery uses smaller incisions and offers quicker recovery and less scarring than traditional open surgery. Barbara spent only one night in the hospital and went home the next day. Within a week of surgery, she returned to her routine of walking for exercise.

Barbara’s Cancer-Free Future

During a follow-up visit with her oncologist on September 3, 2024, Barbara heard good news. “Dr. Abu Rous told me I am cancer-free, and I don’t need radiation or chemotherapy,” Barbara says. She doesn’t need supplemental oxygen to help her breathe, either.

She will have long-term surveillance with periodic testing to make sure the cancer doesn’t return, but she doesn’t mind. “It’s okay with me. I am so grateful for the care I got and the outcome I have. Everybody took the next step to find out what was going on so that I’m alive,” Barbara says.