Author Archives: Brian

Last Blood Draw

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Every two weeks, on the day before chemo, I go in for a blood draw. Today is the last one!

Yes, it’s possible that I may have to go in again before we see the doctor in two weeks, but still, it feels like a milestone.

One of the cool things about getting results online is that I can see all of the results going back. There is even a function to make a graph:

The first point on the graph was the blood draw that I had after my first meeting with Dr. Dodge, September 13th. That was he uttered the words that I’ll never forget “I don’t see any reason to sugar coat this: I believe you non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma” (HA! Joke was on him, he was WRONG it was Hodgkin’s!). Before leaving the office he sent me for a blood draw, my white blood cell (WBC) count was 13.2, the “standard range” for WBC’s is between 4.0 – 10.7. (fun fact: the numbers are in K/ul which I believe stands for “Thousand per Unit”)

The second point on the graph was the blood draw that I had before my first chemo and it came in at a respectable 10.7. Then, well, you can see for yourself how I reacted to my first chemo treatment, 2 weeks later I my WBC had RECOVERED all the way back up to 1.5.

From then on I began taking the injections, and you can see from the chart that from then on my WBC generally hovered around the low end of what a normal count should be.

The shots SUCKED. I hated having to do them. But they worked.

Anyway, I just thought the graph was neat. It’s one way to have documented the journey.

OH, and Happy Anniversary to my parents. 37 years!

Today’s the Day

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I can hardly believe it, but today is my LAST chemo appointment.

I don’t even really know what to say about it other than that.

Note that even in my joy I’m hesitant to make any sweeping claims like “Its over” or “I’m done with treatment.” This is certainly a big milestone and I will most definitely be celebrating as it such, but the realist in me is keen to not get too celebratory yet. There are still several things to get through in the coming weeks, and I’ll touch on what are those as we go. But for now, I’m trying to just be glad that this chapter is coming to an end.

Still, I’ll have to go through the same recovery period that I always do. I can this going one of two ways: it will either be easiest or one of the hardest. Easiest in the sense that I know I won’t have to go back, and that it’s only uphill from here. Yet, it could be hard in the sense that my patience with this process has grown thin, especially since I’m wanting to be working toward recovery and getting back to where I was before I got sick. So you can see how it could go either way, either I won’t mind the downs since I won’t have to go through them again, OR I’ll REALLY hate the limitations it puts on me because I can’t wait until I can start getting better.

So think of us today! We’ll be going in at 1pm and it generally takes around 2-3 hours. So by 4 o’clock I’ll be able say “Back when I was going through chemo…”

And on the plus side, now I’ll have something to drink to on every St. Patrick’s Day for the rest of my life!

Anyway, I’m not really good at expressing excitement, either in person or in print, so I’ll leave the super-excited post for Christine to write for tomorrow.

The Big Climb

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Perhaps agreeing to climb up 69 flights of stairs 3 days after chemo wasn’t the greatest idea that I’ve ever had. BUT we did it, and we lived to tell the tale.

Before

As much as it sucked, I’m actually glad we did it. If for no other reason than to prove that I could. I must say though, that my time wasn’t the greatest. When I did it back in 2008, I think I did it around 14 minutes. This year, it was about 33 minutes. I did the first 20 flights without stopping, but then I think we stopped about every 10 flights or so after that.

The suck

Recovering at the top

This event benefited the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS), which is the same sponsor of the Running Scared 5k and the Pineapple Classic. I think that we will make big group participation activities out of all three of those events in the coming year, and by the time the Big Climb rolls around next spring, I will be one year clear of cancer (knock on wood).

What’s Next?

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Well, I’m done with chemo, but I may not be completely done with cancer treatment yet. We’ll find out in a little over a week.

On Thursday I’ll have a test called a PET Scan (or PT Scan). I had one of these back in September as part of my initial diagnosis and staging. I’ll talk about it more after I go through it again, but basically they inject me with a radioactive glucose and then stick me in a tube and take pictures. Areas that are still “cancerous” will show up as glowing spots in the results.

So that test is coming up on Thursday. I am assuming though that we won’t hear about the results until we meet with oncologist on the following Thursday (the 31st). Depending on what (if anything) comes back in the PT Scan results, a decision will be made about whether or not I’ll have to undergo any radiation treatments. I have to admit, I don’t fully understand the process of radiation, but I do know that I don’t want it. I just want to be done. So, we are holding out hope.

NED!

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PET Scan happened yesterday and a few hours later I received the following email from my doctor:

Great News!!
PET scan normal with no evidence of Hodgkins disease
Will see you next week

Obviously this is great news indeed.

This IS great news, but doesn’t mean that we are out of the woods yet. It just means that we are still on a right track towards the “C word” (in this case “Cured”).

This news still isn’t the deciding factor regarding whether or not I will be undergoing radiation treatments. From what I understand, part of the benefits of radiation are that it will help break up and reduce some of the scar tissue that was left behind by the tumor in my chest. We’ll learn more about this when we meet with oncologist on Thursday.

Also, I just want to point out some key words in the phrasing here (its standard phrasing btw). “No evidence of Hodgkins disease.” No evidence of disease (abbreviated as NED) is a key step, but it’s not the end. It just means that at this point, I don’t have any active tumors. But remember, I just had my final chemo a week ago. Really I SHOULDN’T have any tumors, but that’s not to say that they won’t start forming again now that we’ve stopped treatments. With that in mind, the real test comes in three months after I have the first of my quarterly CAT Scans. If that one comes back as NED as well, then we have something.

So, enough of putting things back into perspective. This is still GREAT news!

Happy Friday indeed!