Living with Lung Cancer - Katie Robertson

Katie Robertson and her family run a lodge in eastern Mississippi that is busy with guests during hunting season. But during the fall of 2006, she was doing a little hunting of her own—searching for a rheumatologist closer to the lodge.

When she found one, her new doctor ordered the usual laundry list of X rays and blood work—and “when the chest X ray came back, the doctor said there was a spot.” Though Mrs. Robertson had never had a cigarette in her life, she was diagnosed with lung cancer two days before Thanksgiving. “The big C-word was a shock, but then lung cancer was a double blow—I thought, ‘Where did that come from?’” she recalls.

Robert Cerfolio, M.D., the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center doctor who performed Mrs. Robertson’s surgery, confessed amazement at how quickly they were able to diagnose what was actually a very small tumor. “They all said, ‘Mrs. Robertson, this is not rare, but it’s an unusual type of cancer that’s hardly ever detected until it’s very well advanced.’ I just said, ‘Well, my physician’s name is Lord—the Lord almighty—so let’s just go with it.’”

Dr. Cerfolio removed a lobe from Mrs. Robertson’s right lung and some of the surrounding lymph nodes, and all her pathology reports came back clear. He said they would follow up with CT scans every six months for the next two years, which would be scaled back to once a year if nothing showed up. Mrs. Robertson remembers that he had a smile on his face when he told her, “I don’t ever plan on seeing you again.”