Dana Farber and Chemotherapy

My follow-up was yesterday at Dana Farber, where I had the privilege of sitting with Dr. David Fisher, a Lymphoma specialist who has a very deep background in the treatment and diagnosis of Hodgkins Lymphoma. He agreed with the diagnosis to this point, with one new wrinkle from the pathologist in Boston; under the sub-types for Hodgkins-Lymphoma I am showing as positive for more than one. This does not change my proposed treatment plan, but rather changes my years for follow up to 10, from 3-5. This was somewhat disconcerting, but I remain confident that I will react well to treatment and put the entire thing behind me in very short order.

This morning I found out that I will begin Chemotherapy treatment tomorrow morning, Wednesday, May 2nd. I am nervous and excited as I kick off this next phase of my battle, but the overreaching feeling is that the sooner I start the sooner I will be done and can resume life as a normal, cancer-free, patient.

Right now the plan is the following;

1. 4 months of chemotherapy - once every other week for 4-6 hours.

2. One month off, during which I will go back to Dana Farber for some additional tests and work.

3. One month of radiation, 5 days a week (M-F)

4. Regular follow-ups for 10 years to ensure the slower growing sub-type does not reappear.

There will be more tests and procedures around this main part of the treatment plan, but this is the skeleton, the big stuff that will help me beat this cancer and move ahead with my life.

Again, I remain extremely confident in the team I will be working with, both here on the Cape and at Dana Farber, and I continue to feel extremely fortunate to have such a strong support system around me during this difficult period. I know I have the best friends, family, and staff there is, and couldn't feel more comfortable that with their help I will not only beat this cancer, but do so comfortably and retain my ability to laugh and live while doing so.

So, tomorrow morning is another beginning; nobody knows how my body will react to the treatments, how run down I will get, if I will lose my hair, lose weight, etc. Time will tell, but the physicians remain confident that I will be able to function at a high level during my treatments and that much of my life will proceed as normal.

I'll do my best to keep up the posting and let people know how I'm feeling and how the treatments are, I'm pretty curious myself at this point...Happy May-Day!