August 2nd - The Nightmare Continues

I had my post chemo PET scan last Wednesday. Today was the big day at my oncologist's office, were I expected to haggle over whether or not to do radiation. Well, that never took place. You know it's going to go bad when the doctor starts off by saying, "I was thinking all weekend how to tell you this..."

Yeah, it went that well.

My worst nightmare for today came true. My cancer is "Refractory". In other words, it is now chemo resistant. Not only is the original mass in my chest growing since chemo ended, but the one in my neck has come back to life. AND the icing on the cake, now there is a third area, in the other side of my chest, that has a cancerous tumor growing.

This is how my doc explained what happened. Basically my chemo was going along quite well from what we could tell. The PET scan I had in May (2/3 through chemo) showed a significant shrink in the tumor in my chest and nothing at all left in my neck. Which would lead to the conclusion that the chemo was working well. However, at some point, a rouge cell got smart. It mutated to become resistant to the chemo that I was receiving. This happens to 1 in 10 people in my shoes, yeah I'm that lucky.

To make matters worse, the doctor said that it's possible that the third (new area) isn't Hodgkin's at all and could be some other kind of Lymphoma.

So the next step you ask? Well my doctor, as nicely as she could, divorced me. I need a larger hospital with a doctor specializing in Refractory Lymphoma to decide what should be done. The good news is, I already had a second opinion set up with a doctor at Memorial Sloan Kettering for the radiation decision. However, when they got my final PET scan, they decided to transfer my case to another of their doctors. So I still don't have an appointment yet, but I was promised it would be in the next two weeks.

Meanwhile, I am a wreck. The cancer is just growing and all I can do is sit here and twiddle my thumbs! I HATE CANCER!!!