Lumpy’s Lymphoma Lowdown

July 26, 2006 · Posted in Lymphoma

Alrighty then… we have a diagnosis… and a general plan of action. The diagnosis is: (insert drum roll here) Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. It is the most common type of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and requires that we get on it ASAP. It’s a moderately aggressive lymphoma, which means that it’s fast growing, but we got it at stage 1, or at worst, stage 2.

Tomorrow, Thursday, July 27, we go to Marshfield to get the staples out of his neck, meet with the RN who screens people to take part in clinical trials of new treatments for this disease, and then he has some test in Nuclear medicine in the hospital up there to determine if his heart is strong enough to withstand the chemo. If all systems are “go” there, then we start chemo on Monday, July 31.

Dr. B said that we’ll have 4 to 6 cycles of chemo. He actually has the drugs injected on one day, every 21 days, and will have another PET scan, CT scans, etc, after the 4th cycle is administered, and if there’s no sign of this nasty little node in there, we won’t have to do any more chemo. If there’s still some of it hanging around, then they’ll do the full run of 6 cycles.

I gotta be honest with ya here, I’m sitting here shaking, and on the verge of tears just thinking about having to watch Al go through all this. Never mind how HE must feel about having to DO the treatments. This is scary, scary stuff here. It’s finally hitting me, I think. I’m still comfortable with the care and treatment he’s getting, and I’m convinced that he’s going to be fine, ultimately, but this interim crap is really gonna suck.

Thanks for the prayers, thanks for any happy thoughts you can send our way… love you all!

Posted by Julie