So today it was back to the oncologist, in a kind of bizarre sort of “hump day.” Today we got over the hump of diagnosis and start the slide into treatment.
I officially have Stage 1 Bulky Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma.
First, let’s talk Stage 1. Nobody was more surprised than me that I’m Stage 1, since this journey started a year ago, and as my ENT said “That thing has had a year to get good and comfortable in there.” Apparently, so was Dr. Dubovsky, since he told me that there was probably a less than 10% chance of that having happened that way, and he wouldn’t have predicted it. But in his words “But what I would have predicted doesn’t mean a damned thing.” So Stage 1 means I’ll be getting four R-CHOP chemo treatments, R-CHOP being the acronym for the drug cocktail if you’re too lazy to click the link.
Bulky is the next thing. Bulky means that my tumor is greater than 10 centimeters in size, which, if you’ve seen any of my tumor photos you’ll realize that was one of the more obvious diagnoses. Bulky gets me at least one radiation treatment. I’ll be meeting with a radiation oncologist (Oh goody, another doctor!) sometime between chemo sessions 1 and 2.
So that’s the thing. Next few days will be another round of crazy, since it also happens to be on one of my visitation weekends with my daughter. So I’ll be having a port installed tomorrow, hanging with the kid over the weekend, some of which I’m thinking I’ll be couch-bound, then drop her at camp and head for chemo Monday morning. Pick her up at camp after chemo. Repeat on Tuesday, just don’t pick up the kid after that.
You know, I have to say, I’m actually looking forward to it. I’ve had enough with poking and prodding and figuring out, I want to get this thing gone. I’m over it.