Results & some homework!

Last Wednesday I seen my Oncologist and at the same time received my C/T results. The visit overall went better than I expected. This node on my chin/jaw that has been concerning me, turns out not to be of great concern at all. The Dr. looked and felt it over and felt that it would not be necessary to do a biopsy of it and that we could use it as a gauge as to what is going on internally.

The C/T results showed there has been some growth in the tumors as was expected. The growth appears to be minimal, about 0.05cm overall with most of the affected nodes. Blood work all came back fine, so for now it is continue with the watch & wait. My oncologist will see me next sometime in September. If anything of concern comes up before then I can contact her and  she will see me.

She also informed me that she has sent a copy of my history to the the Hamilton transplant group for review, to see if I would be a candidate for a mini allogenic stem cell transplant. Even though I am not in favor of a transplant again, I have agreed to go up to Hamilton and hear them out if they think I would be a good candidate for this. I have my doubts that I would be, and even my oncologist is not certain I would be either, but is just covering all of the options that may be available to me. My options are pretty much down to a couple of chemotherapy options with ABVD being the one preferred. Even that would be on a reduced scale as I have already had adriamycin although my oncologist thinks there may be room for "a little more". That would be after undergoing a muga scan in order to see if I could handle anymore.

I really have some concerns revisiting adriamycin again. I know from my research and speaking with my doctors just how nasty a drug this is. It is the heart issues it can bring with it. That my friends scares the hell out of me. After all I've been through I don't want to add heart issues to the list! Let's face it, they've already told me once that I've had my lifetime dose of adriamycin, and now to say there may be a little more room makes me just a little leery about doing this again. With my options limited though what do I go with? Something that possibly causes heart issues, which I've already had, or then there is GDP, which will most likely make my neuropathy worse than it is now.

Let's face it they are all nasty options, but now I faced with making a decision on which will be the most effective for me, yet have the least harmful side effects. What a decision to have to make, I tell you the life of being a cancer patient! Even though there are days when you may feel like a million bucks, you still have all of this in front of you to have to deal with.

Reed Sternberg cells in Hodgkin’s Lymphomas

This watch and wait has to be one of the toughest things I've ever had to do. Even though I feel relatively fine, other than the usual being winded easily, weakness and neuropathy, it is still hard to wrap my head around the fact that there is cancer growing within me and I'm sitting back waiting for it to get worse and/or develop symptoms before doing anything about it. I'm used to being told that we need to get treatment started a.s.a.p. to get it under control.

So if I seem absent minded, miserable or look like I'm somewhere out in space, you now know why. My mind is racing around all these things that I have in front of me to deal with. Keeping positive is a full time job and really difficult some days, but I will get through it. For now it's time to do some home work to see what is the best road to take, hopefully it will be some time before I have to make that decision.

Tim, xxx