Tentative Game Plan

Well, here is the latest update...

The oncologist at Grant officially diagnosed my condition as Hodgkin's disease. Now, he has to diagnose the stage in order to prescribe the appropriate treatment. Like I guessed, he thinks that it is Stage II. Still, we need to get specific. As a result, I get to go through a battery of tests this week.

• This morning they withdrew 5 or 6 tubes of blood.
• On Wednesday, I get a PET scan (I guess its similiar to a CT scan).
• On Thursday, I have CT scans over the rest of my body in addition to test on my lungs, heart, and some other test that I do not understand.
• On Friday, I have bone-marrow extraction (not really looking forward to this one)

Then, next week, I get to have a "port" inserted into my chest, so that I have readily accessible point for an IV. The "port" is inserted, so that they do not tear up the veins in my arms during this process. I am not sure if I should be excited about this port or not?

Now, let's get to the actual treatment. Like I mentioned above, the tests this week will determine the exact treatment. As of right now, the course of action will be 4 cycles of chemotherapy. One cycle equals two weeks. I would receive chemo in this sort of sequence: 1st day, 14th day, 28th day, etc. In a best case scenario , the chemotherapy would last a total of eight weeks. However, it is possible for my treatments to get delayed if my white or red blood counts are low. In addition, I could receive radiation treatment upon the conclusion of the chemotherapy. The doctor did say that my symptoms would start going away within two weeks of starting chemotherapy- a bit of good news.

Again, we are moving through this process pretty fast. If it were not for my mom working at Grant, it would have probably taken us until the beginning of March just to get in for this initial meeting. Right now, I am aiming at the first of March as the start of chemotherapy.

Despite this meeting, we are still waiting on a call back from a Dr. at the James Cancer Hospital at OSU. Unless something falls through, I will be going there to get a second opinion. I do not anticipate this delaying the whole process.

Well, it should be an exciting week with all these tests.