10November09
Today, I saw the oncologist. We are in the process of staging my cancer. Sounds kind of like a Broadway show, only not as much fun. So far, it’s looking like a Stage III or Stage IV low grade follicular lymphoma, which David says sounds like a hairy kind of a cancer. As you can see, we’re all trying to maintain our sense of humor here.
There was talk about antibody treatments, stem cell therapy, chemo, markers… I don’t care for the lingo and I don’t want to learn it, but that doesn’t seem to be an option. It appears as though I, the woman who could never learn a foreign language, is about to become fluent, or at least conversant in Cancer.
I have added two more appointments to my burgeoning social calendar. I’ll have a bone marrow biopsy this coming Thursday and a PET scan on Saturday. That cuts into the middle of my girl camping trip this weekend, but we’ll work around that. Priorities.
The oncologist tells me there is an 80% survival rate at 5 years across the board for patients with this type of cancer, but he says it’s not unreasonable to hope for way more than that. I do. From what I understand, there is no "cure" for this type of cancer. Instead, I will probably go into remission and then at some point in the future, there is a likelihood of recurrence. I told the doctor that I have a 17 year old daughter at home, and that I wanted to attend her wedding someday and hold her child in my arms. It’s good to have goals. J
0 comments:
Post a Comment