Seattle in Spring

I had my consultation at the Hutchinson Seattle Cancer Care Center, or "The Hutch" for those in the know. I met with Dr. Stephen Petersdorf in the afternoon with my mom and Melissa by my side. I originally talked a couple of months ago with Dr. Effie Petersdorf (I can only assume they are husband and wife), one of the transplant specialists there. But now that it is likely that I will not need a transplant, I was sent to see a lymphoma specialist. Enter Dr. Stephen Petersdorf.

Anyway, Dr. Petersdorf was quite friendly, and explained things very well. After a physical, he described how I ended up in this predicament. There are four different markers that they use to identify what kind of lymphoma I have. Hodgkin's Lymphoma is positive for two of the markers, and Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma is positive for the other two. Well, my biopsy last year indicated positive markers for three of the four. Still all experts agreed that this looked like Hodgkin's Lymphoma, so that's the direction we went. Well, it proved to be more of a hybrid "gray-zone" lymphoma, and this time, I actually was positive for three of the four markers, but one of them was different!

Anyway, Dr. Petersdorf agreed that the R-CHOP treatment plan was the way to go, though he did express one concern. One of the drugs in the treatment program is called "Adriamycin." This was actually one of the drugs in the treatment from last year. Well, this drug is proven to have some serious cardiac side effects if too much is taken too quickly, and two summers of chemotherapy with this drug worried Dr. Petersdorf. But he thought that by going to a 4-day "drip" treatment where I receive drugs slowly but steadily over four days rather than all at once, I could reduce the risk of side effects. He also said that he expected that Dr. Weeks could perform the treatments in the Tri-Cities, so I wouldn't have to relocate to Seattle for an extended period of time.

Dr. Petersdorf planned to call Dr. Weeks on Monday and dicuss all options. In the meantime, he wanted me to have an Echocardiogram to see how my heart is doing, plus another PET Scan to see if the cancer cells had spread. So, I continue to wait, though it looks like we are getting closer to making things happen.