My Diagnosis
Well … alot of things happened today.
I had my Bone Marrow Biopsy today (6/03/03). A word to the wise. If in your lifetime you can avoid this test … please do! 
It had to be the most unpleasant experience I have ever had. The only good thing about it was that it was over fairly quickly.
On to my diagnosis ….
I have been diagnosed with Agressive Large Cell Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. The success rate in curing this type of Lymphoma is 50%.
Not exactly the news I wanted to hear, but we all know what a lucky bastard I am so I know I will be alright in 6 months.
The disease will also be staged this week. I had the Bone Marrow Biopsy today (6/03/03). I get a full body CT Scan on Wednesday (6/04/03) and PET Scan on Thursday (6/05/03). From all these tests they will be able to tell if the disease has spread to other parts of my body.
My Chemotherapy has already been scheduled and will begin on Friday June 6, 2003. I will be getting a combination of 5 drugs (CHOP/R):
- C = Cytoxan
- H = Adriamycin (turns your urine Red or Orange - be careful if you are visiting me and I am really pushing you to try this new kool-aid I have
) - O = Oncovin
- P = Prednisone (Steroids)
- R = Rituxan (Antibodies) - is a special murine/human protein engineered in the lab that attaches to specific human lymphocytes. Once the protein attaches to the lymphocytes it recruits the body to destroy the lymphocyte. This drug is pretty cool because it is one of a few drugs that will specifically target the cancer and not any of my other cells in my body.
My first Chemo session will last 6-8 hours. The first one is so long because they will be putting alot of Rituxan into my body and have to do it slowly the first time around. Subsequent sessions should only last 3 hours or so (i think).
Right now, the game plan is to have 6 - 8 Chemotherapy sessions spaced at 3 week intervals … so I should be done and cured by January 2004.
Can anyone say Festivus?!?
So that is all the news we got today. Once I get the staging report I will be sure to add that to this post as well.
Nothing has really changed. We knew I had Lymphoma, that I would need Chemotherapy, and that in 6 months I will be cured. It’s just nice to know exactly what is going on now.
Shannon
