Oncologist visit I

Oncologist visit I

June 28, 2010 - One thing I have avoided doing is researching my illness. If there's anything I do know, it's that I'm not a doctor and I'm not qualified to sift through medical data and determine how or even if it applies to me, especially about so complex a subject. Getting myself all worked up about something I found on a website would only prove me to be so smart that I'm stupid. I do hear many stories from friends and acquaintances about people who have survived non Hodgkins lymphoma. Those stories are encouraging. I also know of at least one that ended badly.

Here's the pep talk I give myself: I will enter the fight with my eyes wide open, but make no mistake, I intend to win. I will maintain a positive attitude and will do whatever my doctor tells me gives me the best chance to succeed. My doctor will be my final authority on all things cancer.

Julie and I both like Dr. R. immediately. He's an articulate, precise, soft spoken Muslim guy with a dark, dark beard, the type you'd expect on an Amish dude. He goes through the whole explanation of my affliction, taking his time and asking if we have questions or need anything explained further. You get the feeling he'd spend all day with you if you needed him to. Fine quality in a doctor.

On examining me, he finds lumps under both arms and on both sides of my groin. He seems unconcerned about this, but now that Julie hears about it, my secret is no longer a secret.

Cut to the chase: he's confident AND optimistic about my outlook. My cancer is slow growing. It's also difficult to completely eradicate, because cell division occurs less frequently than with the faster growing variety and the chemotherapy kills the cancer when the cells divide.

The nature of my type of cancer is that if I were older, it might not even be treated, rather it would just be monitored for things like tumors closing off the airway or restricting blood flow, etc. He said I was "young" and that in my case, we should treat my cancer.

He said I needed a PET scan and a bone marrow biopsy for starters. After mentioning the bone marrow biopsy, he asks about my pain tolerance. Uh-oh.

I ask if finding cancer in my bone marrow would a) surprise him or b) significantly change my outlook or c) change the way he approaches treating me. No, no, and no.

Chemotherapy should go like this: 6 treatments with 3 weeks between each. Then, maintenance treatments, less frequently. When I finish I will have had 24 months of chemo (Ugh!).

Ideally my cancer will be completely eradicated, but if it isn't, hopefully its slow rate of advancement would either A) not require chemo again for quite some time or B) be slowed down so much that my inevitable heart attack would kill me first.... OK, what I really got out of what he said was that it might be slowed down so much that it would be pretty much a non factor over the remainder of my life. The heart attack thing I made up.

Chemotherapy tolerance is very difficult to judge, but he's hopeful it won't make me too terribly sick.

As he's escorting us back out to the waiting room, he says something like 'don't worry TOO much, we'll take care of this'.

We both leave this appt with our spirits lifted. But as always, with worries too - what if more cancer shows up, what if it's just a symptom of something else, what if ...yes, indeed, just like "your aunt Edna's ass"... And at the same time, I'm so happy I didn't get the "Get your affairs in order" speech.

We leave and make our phone calls. Some of the people on the other end of the line cry quietly with relief. I am astounded by this. I am relieved, also. It will take a while to acknowledge the irony of feeling relief when I still have 24 months of chemotherapy hanging over my head.

I think my sister Mary put it this way 'for bad news, it's pretty good news'.

High on Dr. R.'s Confidence and Optimism, I meet my sisters Sylvia and Deb at my mom's house that same night and deliver the news 'I've got cancer but it looks like I'll be OK'. My 85 year old mother is a little perplexed but takes the news quite well.

We proceed to let everyone in on what was previously a fairly tightly held secret.