update on lung damage MTX..not good

I am so sorry you are going through this. I will be praying that they find effective treatment for you. Take good care of yourself and your little one and do stay active on the arthritis board so we can offer what little support we can.
Sj

hi issabellesmommy here is an article from johns hopkins on what i have. good luck hope its this!

As is true of other extra-articular manifestations of RA, pulmonary nodules arise more often in men with a high titer rheumatoid factor who have active articular disease. There have been reports of pulmonary rheumatoid nodules in women and seronegative patients. Smoking may be a risk factor for the development of nodules.

They are usually asymptomatic, discovered incidentally on chest x-ray. Occasionally they are associated with cough, hemoptysis, and chest pain. The nodule size ranges from a few millimeters to several centimeters (up to 7 cm). Multiple nodules are more common than a solitary nodule. The peripheral upper and mid lung zones are more common than the lower zones, except in Caplans syndrome (pneumoconiosis with rheumatoid nodules).

They may increase in size or resolve spontaneously, or appear in new sites as older ones resolve. Pulmonary nodules may behave independently or follow the course of subcutaneous nodules and arthritis. Case reports have described pulmonary nodules preceding or appearing concurrently with newly diagnosed RA.

Treatment options include surgical pleural decortication for BPF and resection of a nodule to rule out malignancy or infection. There are no controlled studies of medical therapy for pulmonary nodules, but case reports suggest that they may respond to steroids and/or methotrexate.

Thank you guys. I knew I could vent here. They told me it is "probably Lymphoma". They said it is one large mass...I drew it out, I didn't think it was all that large, but I don't know how they scale masses. Anyway, I am really scared and wishing the fullbody PET scan was earlier than Monday. If there are no other lymphomas elsewhere, I will have just one surgical biopsy. If there are other areas, then they will have to schedule a longer surgery for those, too. They will remove as much of the mass as they can, but when I talked to my regular Dr today for more answers, he told me part of it is wrapped around my trachea, so it may not be completely removable, but if not, then chemo would get rid of it. They all talk like cancer, and then tell me that it might be something else. They already have me set up with an oncologist, so I am not expecting anything other than cancer. I just hope it is in an early stage so it is a lot more treatable. I am not scared of chemo and radiation. I am scared of them not working. Thanks, I really appreciate your words of encouragement and hope and pray it isn't lymphoma. I guess I am just glad that I have pneumonia, too, or this may not have been noticed when it was. My Dr today said the shortness of breath and pain in my side is th pneumonia and is not related to the mass. Oh well. Pray for me and my beautiful daughter!