Which I consider to be Some Good News. Or At Least Not Bad news anyway… Which is good, in a way.
Got a preliminary report back from the oncologist, Dr. Bleeker, yesterday; what I have is an early stage diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, and with all the testing, have only found evidence of it in the jaw. That is music to my ears! I’m definitely not out of the woods yet — DLBCL is still a fairly aggressive cancer, so I still have chemotherapy and probably radiation therapy in my future — but considering it’s been caught early and it’s only made itself known in that one spot should make the task of eradicating the bugger a bit less of an ordeal. But reading between the lines, it sounds like DLBCL is kind of a hopper where all the I-don’t-know-exactly-what-it-is kinds of lymphomas end up. So I’m not exactly sure what to think, other than trusting that God has it all under control.
Just to back up and recap on what’s happened since my last post, on Thursday of this week, I reported back to Sanford Hospital for another round of surgery. The goal was to reopen last week’s surgical site to dig out a second sample of tissue from my jaw. The worry was that the oral surgeon had been too thorough and there wouldn’t be enough left to give them the information they needed. They also wanted a bone marrow sample, and had originally scheduled that to happen on Monday, which made no sense to me at all; if they are putting me under for the sample from my jaw, why not take advantage of the opportunity and grab the bone marrow at the same time? That procedure is usually done in the office under local anesthesia, and it’s supposed to be a painful procedure; I have a relatively high tolerance for pain, but still prefer to avoid it when possible. Thankfully they were able to rearrange things so that both could be done on Thursday while I was sedated.
Got a good laugh from one of the docs though; I don’t remember his name, but he was a pathology resident, fresh out of med school, and he came into the room to give me the rundown of the procedure and the risks involved, and to get me to sign the consent form. Wow, was he nervous. Not a huge confidence builder, seeing him like that, especially when he said that he would be doing the procedure (with Dr. Putnam assisting), but he looked like the introverted type that was more comfortable and competent around the pathology lab than around people, so didn’t say anything. It was funny though!
In the end, the surgeon was able to get some good samples from the jaw, and the bone marrow thing went without issue. By the time all that was done it was about 3 pm; I was pretty shot when we got home and hit the sack until about 8 pm, then got up for a bite to eat. By 10 I was ready for bed again; those drugs do nasty things to a body, but still preferable to getting things done without.
Friday morning meant another trip back to Sanford, this time to the Van Demark Clinic for another test, a PET scan; for the PET scan, I was injected with a radioactive compound, and given another compound (bromide I think he said) to drink. I then had to sit quietly for 45 minutes for the stuff to circulate through my bloodstream in preparation for the scan. The idea is that the isotope somehow (magically) attaches to cancerous cells, and the PET scanner’s x-ray highlights those areas that contain cancer cells. Or at least that’s the gist of what I caught from how things were described. Funny how you put your trust in these people you’ve never met and let them inject you with this or that and run you through that or another machine, trusting that they know what they are doing. The PET scan machine was like the CT, but more like the MRI procedure; it took about a half hour, during which I was on my back being moved through a tube barely wide enough for my shoulders. Good thing I had taken a hydrocodone before the appointment, and was given a muscle relaxer when I got there; I was in a happy place!
So back to the good news; the PET scan showed no other hot spots, and the bone marrow tests came back negative. The samples from my jaw started to tell them what they needed to know, and all of that together with last week’s CT & MRI showed that the cancer is isolated to that spot in my jaw. Having a proper diagnosis is huge, and knowing that it’s just in that one spot is bigger still. I’m still in for a round of chemotherapy and radiation therapy, but knowing that it will be relatively minor is a huge boost. I was so pumped Friday night that I wanted to dance! It’s Sunday now, and I still feel pretty rough; my back hurts from the bone marrow extraction, and my mouth hurts from the biopsy there, and my lip is still numb & feels like it weighs about 40 lbs, but Friday’s news felt like a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders. Now that I’ve come down from the cloud I know I’m nowhere near out of the woods, but having the enemy identified and located feels so much better.
So very thankful that Dr. Bleeker took the time to give us the news before the weekend; couldn’t have picked a better doctor! And so thankful for so many friends and loved ones who have been praying; a good friend mentioned this morning that if he had as many people praying for him as I have had for me, he’s not sure what he could accomplish. All I can say is I hate to think what things might have been if people hadn’t been praying for me… The end result may have been no different — that God is allowing this to play out for some bigger purpose — or it may have made all the difference in the world. Either way, I am thankful. And humbled.