Getting Started

OK...so I am setting up this blog spot but I am sooooo not techie enough to be here. My brothers are both probably laughing hysterically over in Australia. I don't even text message..... But this was on my New Years Resolution list as a way to journal my experience and make an easy (?) way to keep in touch with folks. We'll see. As you can tell from my main page, I still have a little work to do on the site. Hopefully I will get a picture and some info about myself there before long.

But first a little boring medical history and getting up to date. I was diagnosed with Hodgkins, nodular sclerosing, stage IIe in June of 2005. It was mostly in my mediastinal area with some damage to my sternum bone - it was that pain that led to my diagnosis and not the usual "a lump appeared on my neck". I did ABVD, 4 cycles, from July to Oct '05, and then radiation in Nov and Dec '05. I was declared clean in Jan'06. It was supposed to be your garden variety Hodgkins case "if you are going to get cancer....this is the GOOD kind to have". I was supposed to be done with it, right? I had normal CAT scans in Apr '06, a tiny spot on my Jul '06 CAT scan, and then a "hot" PET scan in Dec '06. A biopsy of tissue in my right lung confirmed a relapse of Hodgkins. This time it is still in my chest area, but now with some disease in my right lung as well.

OK, so now we are planning treatments. I have an appointment tomorrow with the stem cell transplant doctor to go over the proposed treatment that I would get here locally. Then we are planning a trip to New York next Thursday to speak with a Hodgkins expert - Dr. Moscowitz at Sloan Kettering - about my case. I am pretty excited I got in to see him. He actually researched and wrote the protocol that I will receive down here. And he is working on clinical trials that are trying to "optimize" chemo based on risk factors of a first relapse Hodgkins case (like me!). After that it will be time to decide where and how we treat this beast.

I am feeling quite well for a person walking around with cancer...... the kids and work keep us busy, so there isn't too much time to dwell on this. For now, it is kinda of like a project - research, plan, execute....however, I am sure it will get much more real soon enough. But for now.... "Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself" Mt. 6:34 "Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" Mt. 6:27