*April 2025* Written by Karen LeBonte
When he was diagnosed with lung cancer, Jeff Stibelman was told he’d live for 6 months, maybe a year. That was 4 years ago. Today Jeff is busy advocating for lung cancer patients and research.
Jeff is no stranger to cancer. In 2017, he underwent treatment for a mass in his cervical spine. It was supposed to be non-cancerous, but they found it was cancer atypical. “That’s when the surgeon for my neck surgery educated me. He used me as a case study in his classes and taught me how to advocate for myself. This is an important part of my story. It’s how I became an advocate,” Jeff said.
Initial surgery was followed by radiation and recovery. It was very difficult but “everything looked OK afterward,” Jeff said. He eased back into living.
Then came Covid. In 2021, Jeff, worried about the risk he faced from the virus, called his PCP to ask whether he should have the vaccine. The doctor told Jeff to come in just to doublecheck his overall health first. “The lungs were clear, the heart was good,” said Jeff. But the chest X-ray was another story.
“The mass in the lower right lobe has grown significantly,” said the report.
What mass?
As we know, radiologists compare our current images to any former imaging they can access. The radiologist who interpreted Jeff’s 2021 images compared them to scans from 2017. Those earlier scans showed a mass that had never been mentioned.
Today, Jeff is clear: “I was misdiagnosed. Had the radiologist reported the mass in his lung, the lung cancer would have been Stage 1 and operable, rather than being Stage 4, incurable.”
And so, in 2021, the whirlwind began: stat CT scans, brain MRI, biomarker testing, EBUS bronchoscopy, and consults with surgeon and oncologist. In addition to the mass in his lung, Jeff also had brain and bone metastases. Read more.
