I had my bone marrow biopsy at 7:30 in the morning. It went completely as expected - I was drugged up, so I skipped work, and was a little sore. My hockey team happened to have our first playoff game at 9:00 that night. I asked Dr. Weeks if I could injure myself any more by playing. He said no, and as long as I could withstand the pain, I could play.
That night, I downed a couple of Percoset and headed off to the rink to play. I was a little sore during the pregame skate, but once the game started and I got some adrenaline going, I was fine. I had an assist and was a +3 as we won 7-5 to advance to the next round.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Uh Oh...
So, not much had happened for the last few months. I had a PET Scan in November, and it indicated that something might be happening in the left mediastinum (the area in my chest where I had the mass before), but it was too small to tell what was going on, and Dr. Weeks recommended I wait for a couple of months and have another scan.
On February 14, I went in for another PET Scan, and made an appointment for March 6 to discuss the results. Well, on February 20, Dr. Weeks' nurse Scott called me saying that the doctor wanted to see me ASAP. Needless to say, I believed that was not a good thing. I made an appointment to see him the next day.
My mom and I went to the appointment today expecting bad news, and unfortunately that is what we got. The mass in my chest had grown back, suggesting a recurrence of the Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Dr. Weeks was not only concerned with the fact that it looks like the cancer cells came back, but with how quickly and aggressively it seemed to happen. He proposed that I would likely need a Stem Cell Transplant to fight them off this time, as it seems like the chemotherapy treatments would not be effective in completely eliminating the disease.
My mom and I spent about an hour with him, going over the basics - What is a Stem Cell Transplant? Why would I need one? Where would this take place? Long-Term Prognosis? I won't go over everything we talked about, but I have found that the Wikipedia page for Stem Cell Transplants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell_transplantation) is pretty thorough and clear, and is actually a pretty good source of info.
Anyway, we made plans to have another bone marrow biopsy the next week to determine if the cancer cells had spread to my bone marrow. That was set for next Wednesday, February 27. After the results of that, we can start to set up sort of a gameplan.
On February 14, I went in for another PET Scan, and made an appointment for March 6 to discuss the results. Well, on February 20, Dr. Weeks' nurse Scott called me saying that the doctor wanted to see me ASAP. Needless to say, I believed that was not a good thing. I made an appointment to see him the next day.
My mom and I went to the appointment today expecting bad news, and unfortunately that is what we got. The mass in my chest had grown back, suggesting a recurrence of the Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Dr. Weeks was not only concerned with the fact that it looks like the cancer cells came back, but with how quickly and aggressively it seemed to happen. He proposed that I would likely need a Stem Cell Transplant to fight them off this time, as it seems like the chemotherapy treatments would not be effective in completely eliminating the disease.
My mom and I spent about an hour with him, going over the basics - What is a Stem Cell Transplant? Why would I need one? Where would this take place? Long-Term Prognosis? I won't go over everything we talked about, but I have found that the Wikipedia page for Stem Cell Transplants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell_transplantation) is pretty thorough and clear, and is actually a pretty good source of info.
Anyway, we made plans to have another bone marrow biopsy the next week to determine if the cancer cells had spread to my bone marrow. That was set for next Wednesday, February 27. After the results of that, we can start to set up sort of a gameplan.
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