Hi. My name is Gene. I had the operation known as laproscopic fundoplication, in June 1995. My symptoms began about 1 yr. prior to that.

During the month of July 1994, my wife noticed that I was hitting the antacids more often. I was popping about 7 to 10 Tums per day. This was unusual for me because I would only have to hit the antacids after eating spicy type foods. I had reached the point where almost anything I ate gave me some sort of heartburn. I went to the doctors and he put me on a diet that would be easier on my stomach. The heartburn attacks subsided somewhat but they did not go away entirely.

During the first week of Jan. 1995, I woke up from a sound sleep by what I can only describe as "gasping for air". I was not able to breathe. I began hitting myself in the chest in an effort to get my lungs working again and within a few seconds (seemed like an hour) I began to breathe. After composing myself and after a fruitless attempt to understand what took place. I fell back to sleep.

Four days later I woke up with a low fever. I took a few aspirins (yes, aspirins) for the fever and it went away in a reasonable amount of time. About a week later I had another low fever. I repeated the aspirin dosage, with the same success. Two days later, I work up from a sound sleep again, gasping for air. I began hitting myself in the chest again. Shortly, I was able to breathe again. I began to wonder what was going on. The next morning I work up with a low fever. I took the aspirin.

This fever on-fever off routine repeated itself several more times over the next 2 weeks. It was now the beginning of Feb. I began feeling pain in the left side of my chest and numbness in my left arm. I began thinking heart attack signs. I was getting scared. Physical activity was also affected. I could not bend over or lift anything heavy without feeling some sort of chest discomfort. I made a doctor's appointment. At that time I had what is considered high cholesterol (255), hdl's were low and the ldl's were high. My triglycerides were fine. It was because of my cholesterol that my doctor sent me for a stress test. I kind of forgot about the fevers. Fortunately, I had taken a stress test (offered at the time of my physical for work) a year earlier. I had the stress test plus a test where they injected a substance and observed the flow of blood immediately after the stress test. Oddly enough, this stress test was better than my previous test a year earlier. There was nothing wrong in either test. I went away feeling good about that anyway. The fevers continued over the next week and a half. That is how long it took to get another appointment with my doctor and for the official report from the specialist to arrive. By the time I returned to my doctor's office I was in pretty bad shape. The fevers began to take a toll on my energy. I was weak and losing weight.

This time, I mentioned the fevers and the heartburn situation to my doctor. He told me that heartburn has been known to cause chest and arm pain. His concern now was with the fevers and my present weakened condition. He sent me for a chest x-ray.

Two days later, a Friday, I received a call from my doctor and he told me that the hospital reported a large mass in the upper lobe of my right lung. I did smoke for about 25 years (quit about 5 years ago) all total and this diagnosis was not sounding all to good to me. My doctor gave me a referral to a specialist. It took 5 days to get into his office. During those five days, I had myself dead and buried. It was the worst five days of my life.