Daisy,
Believe me - I feel your fear. I had a very abrupt ENT actually get mad at me for not coming in sooner and that I should get my affairs in order because I had a highly advanced cancer and probably wouldn't survive 6 months. I then commenced to pass out in his liitle throne ENT chair. It was quite a scene - my wife was with me - the whole office stopped while they went running around looking for ammonia capsules. It was quite a shock initially, but then the survival mode kicked in, I joined OCF and lived on the internet for weeks gathering as much information as I could.

I send him a Christmas card every year just to remind him that he isn't always right.

To address your last paragraph; first, there is not enough diagnostic information yet to throw in the towel. The lung node could be scar tissue from a previous pnuemonia.

Pain can be managed and is a basic patient right. Since you are at a cancer center they will take care of that.

Not that any of this is a picnic but from my own experience I have had three years of life that I wouldn't have had otherwise and I look forward to many more.

I hated doctors, needles and all that stuff (I still do in fact)- I refused a PEG, getting my teeth pulled and I still survived - he just needs to get over the shock. From Hollywood and and various other sources it is all too easy to assume that cancer is an automatic death sentence but it is not and there are many, many survivors in the US today. My quality of life now is richer and better than it ever was before the cancer adventure.