MrbLOB9000

I had my suspicions that Hodgkin’s was back for a few months now. That’s actually why I didn’t get my port taken out after the three month checkup even though Dr. Dragon said I could, ’cause I had already started feeling kinda bad (in the same way as I did before like a year chemo) for a few days every week or every other week for a month, month and a half at that point, so decided to hold off on getting the port taken out at least until I had some more scans.  Well, had some scans a month early because I started getting night sweats in addition to feeling bad more often.  But most of that you probably know at this point, so on to the new info.

One of the lymph nodes in my left pelvic area right next to my hip is much bigger than it should be.  Can’t feel it from the outside with your hand but he showed us the scans you can definitely see the difference in the the left side vs. the right side. (apparently a PET scan does both a CT scan and a PET scan, I didn’t know that, just found out today).  From talking to Dr. Dragon, it seems like it’s almost definitely Hodgkin’s again.  I have to schedule an MRI and a needle biopsy once I finish typing this.  Seems kinda like a formality just to make sure that it’s Hodgkin’s.  I ask him what else could it be if it’s not Hodgkin’s and he flatly said, “I don’t know.”  If the needle biopsy isn’t conclusive we’ll have to do a regular biopsy that would be similar to an inguinal hernia surgery to get at the lump.  It’s a bigger deal than a biopsy on the neck (or probably arm pit) since they’re much closer to the surface basically but it’s still not major surgery.  Hoping the needle biopsy is all that’s needed.

He said he’s disappointed but not discouraged that I didn’t stay in remission (that I did have remission since it was totally gone after chemo).  That there’s things they can do and he’s not giving up on me.   He said once they make sure it’s Hodgkin’s treatment will probably be few cycles of chemo (different drugs than last time) and then some kind of treatment using my stem cells.  I never really understood what a cycle was, last time it seemed like a cycle was two chemo treatments, but don’t know if it’s number of treatments that makes it a cycle or the amount of time (like is it a cycle because it was two treatments or was it a cycle because it was a months worth of time, I have no idea).  He said something about still having a good chance of recovery with that treatment, having like 40% recovery rate…. Doesn’t sound that good, but I guess there’s other cancers that basically if it comes back you’re just toast with no chance of recovery.  So it could definitely be worse 40% is way better than 1% or 5% and holy shit better than 0%…  Wish I was healthy of course, but no amount of wishing will make that happen, so at least it’s not a super long shot…

I guess that’s it for now…  I’ll keep you posted.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 10th, 2009 at 12:12 pm and is filed under Hodgkin's lymphoma. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.