May 15 - May 18: I will just give the highlights of these last couple of days. If you would like the nitty gritty, let me know.
Here it goes: I received a call Friday morning at 11:00 am and was told to go the emergency at local hospital for a blood transfusion and to meet the blood specialist there. He looked at the blood test results and the ultrasound from a month ago, and then the results from Thursday. Here is what happened:
Friday: bone marrow biopsy done in the afternoon. 2 samples taken, didn't quite work out, so he wants to do a lymph node biopsy also. Told I have a Lymphoma cancer, but they don't know what type yet. I also get about 4 blood samples taken, and given 2 units of blood. They had a bed waiting for me and I could not believe this was all happening so fast. Saw the surgeon that night about which lymph node they will remove.
Saturday: I have a chest x-ray taken to see if I have any lymph nodes in my chest, if I do, I can't have a general anesthetic for the surgery. Turns out I didn't have any so that was good news. Surgery was done about an hour later, using a local. Felt no pain at all, and actually fell asleep halfway through it. Specialist doc comes in later and tells me that from the blood work I have 99% chance that the cancer is lymphoma mantel cancer. It is a very aggressive cancer and he will book me for chemo on Sunday.
Sunday: I received 3 types of chemo, 2 iv's going at once, 1 unit of blood before the chemo, 1 unit afterward. It was a very busy day. Doc says I should be able to go home by Tuesday. (wow!)
Monday: No serious side effects, doc comes in and kicks me out today! Double whoo hoo! I am now at home and feeling okay. Downside is, I may not be a work for awhile to a lack of immune system from the chemo, and no blood clotting from the cancer.
Conclusion: I will live (yay!!), it may take a while for to get back to normal, but I'm told that I have a 97% chance of recovery and the chemo should aggressively attack it. I cannot be near anybody with any type of sniffles, cold, flu and anything of that nature or it can kill me.
Lymphoma Mantel Cancer facts: Rare cancer (of course, only in my case), not passed down by heredity. They are not sure what causes it, only that it could be from some toxin in my past. And also that my ginkgo biloba may have made me much more susceptible to it. I sure didn't see that when I researched ginkgo a number of years ago, so be careful with it if you use it. So I am not allowed any herbal medication or vitamins while doing chemo. They do not know how long I will be doing chemo, could be a few months, could be 6 months.
