Here We Go

I don’t know who it was, but somebody out there heard me lament the waiting process and decided to pray that I just wouldn’t have to wait. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that – I’m a spiritual idiot sometimes. Whoever you are – thanks! My oncologist called this morning and asked for us to come for our consultation this afternoon. Pardon the brevity of this update – our heads are still swimming and we have tons to do now.

My cancer is Burkitt’s Lymphoma. It is an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

My cancer is in stage 1, meaning we caught it early. This is very good.

My cure rate is 85-90%. This is also very good.

As far as cancer news goes, I’m not sure it could have been much better.

But here’s where it gets ugly. My chemotherapy and immunotherapy (R-hyper-CVAD) will begin later this week at Conway Regional Hospital. My regimen will consist of 8 rounds of chemo. Each round will begin with 5 days of inpatient treatment. They will be bombarding my body will all sorts of stuff nearly around the clock for 5 days. After my 5 days in the hospital, I’ll be released home. After a couple of weeks (give or take a few days) my body should recover enough to start the next round. For those doing the math – that’s about 6 months of chemo, in and out of the hospital.

The toll it’s going to take on my body is not going to be pleasant. And my time away from family, friends, work, hobbies, etc is going to be difficult to handle. But I’m gonna kick some Burkitt butt with this chemo and that’s what matters the most.

I’ll post more later. Thank you all!