Treatment 7 of 8

Well it has been, what...three or four months since I last wrote on this thing. If you are reading it then I am surprised that you even checked back. And yes...no news is good news. I am doing great and I only have two to three months of treatments left.

So, here is what has been going on. When I was first diagnosed with lymphoma my doctor gave me a chemotherapy regimen with six treatments that were scheduled to take one month each. Last month I finished my sixth and what I thought was my final treatment. I went to my oncologist and he said that I have a decreased chance of relapse if I get eight chemotherapy treatments instead of six. He said that in order to establish efficacy, research shows that eight chemotherapy treatments is the best option. I told him that I would rather do two more chemotherapy treatments now than have to do six more later. I know that there is always a chance that it will come back but I want to do anything I can to decrease those chances now.

I asked my Dr. why he initially prescribed six treatments if eight treatments are the best regimen. He said that eight treatments is not normally an option because most people get too sick after six. They either lose too much weight or the chemo takes too big of a toll on their health. He said that since I was doing so well physically that my body would be able to handle the additional two treatments. As a side note I am doing so well physically that I think I am one of the very few who actually gains weight during the treatments. The nurses always ask me how I feel, and what my appetite is like. I would tell them that I my appetite hasn't gone anywhere, in fact I'm just as hungry as I always have been, but I can't answer because my Dad beats me to the punch. He tells them sarcastically that he is worried about my appetite and that he wants something for it. Then he tells them it isn't something to get my appetite back, he wants to get me an appetite suppressant because I am eating him out of his house. I think that I have gained weight because despite the fact I am doing well, I am not working out as much as I used to. That coupled with the fact that I sit around and eat all day I have been able to keep my weight on.

I also asked my doctor if getting two additional chemo treatments would increase my chances of getting a thing called chemo induced lymphoma. I had read that one of the causes of lymphoma is being immunosupressed. Whenever you get chemotherapy you become immunosupressed. So by getting chemo you can actually later on get lymphoma. It happens to some people who have other types of cancer; colon, breast, lung etc. Some of those people go on to develop lymphoma as well, because the chemo has damaged their lymphatic system. My oncologist said that the damage to my lymphatic system has already been done, and that two more treatments of chemo would not change my chances of developing lymphoma later. That settled any concerns that I had about putting more toxic chemicals directly into my veins.

The week before my Dr.'s appointment I had had a PET scan. A PET scan is where they inject me with radioactive sugar and then give you a CAT scan. Cancer cells do not get the signal to stop growing and they use sugar in order to reproduce. A PET scan measures where the sugar goes in the body. Any spots that have a large uptake of sugar are cancerous. The Dr. had the results of the PET and it showed that the cancer has shrunken from the size of a softball to two centimeters and that there were no active cancer cells remaining.

I have also had a problem with my heart. Since starting chemotherapy my heart rate has slowly increased. My current resting heart rate is in the high 90s/low 100s. I went to a cardiologist and he said that I have tachycardia, which means I have a fast heart rate. With all of the chemo I am getting the doctor did not want to give me any additional medicine, but he gave me an echocardiogram, an ultrasound of the heart, to see if there was any damage to my heart from the chemo. The last thing the doctor told me at the appointment was that my heart was not damaged from the chemo and that hopefully once I am done with the chemo my heart rate will return to normal.

So I guess all in all things are going great. I am still here in Phoenix so if you see a fat bald chemo patient come by and say hi.

Noelle and I hangin'

At the hospital with my new hobby...knitting

The Mayo Clinic Hospital where I get all my treatments

My white blood cells were high enough for Noelle and I to sneak away for the weekend to the Grand Canyon.