My New Doctor
First a quick recap of my life with chemo. Between the years of 1997 and 2012, I have had; 1 Bone scan, 2 Biopsies, 6 PET Scans, 9 CT Scans , and as of August 14th, 40 Rituxan Treatments and 60 Chemo Treatments. That totals 100 treatments.
Now, back to the story…The year is 2000, I left Dr. S. and found a new Doctor. His name is Dr. A. and he is one of the best doctors in Tampa, also
A PET Scan is a type of imaging where you are injected with a sugar solution/tracer of radiation. Then you have to sit motionless for about an hour, usually in a freezing cold room. During this time, the body absorbs the solution. The tumors absorb it even faster because the tumors like sugar. While one is, being scanned the radioactive solution gives off Gamma rays. The result is that the tumors show up as bright reddish spots on the resulting film because they have absorbed all the radioactive sugar solution. With this method, the doctors can tell if you have active cancer from the bright spots on the film. Between 2000 and 2007, I had six PET Scans. Eventually Dr. A. told me that there was no need to do them because my cancer grows slow. For my tumors to show up on the PET Scan they would have to be dangerously big and would have progressed too far. The lymph nodes should normally be the size of a bean and mine have been as big as D-Cell batteries, but no need for the PET Scan, for now. Dr. A. was innovative and aware of new treatments and my previous Dr. was not.
Dr. A. also explained to me the reason I had to take two different types of chemo with my old doctor. He told me based on the notes, that I had been under dosed for 6 months, then my old doctor had to give me a different type of chemo that unfortunately kills Stem Cells. Therefore, I would not be taking the Fludura any more, as I may need my Stem Cells some day. I agreed no more Fludara because I like my Stem Cells.
At this point my Follicular Lymphoma was slowly coming back, that's what it does. My cancer is chronic and there was no cure (and there still is no cure at this time). That meant I would ride it out for as long as possible before having to start chemo again. It is best to try to take chemo as little as possible because it could cause a transformtion into a worse type of cancer. The Evolution of an indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) to an aggressive histology is known as histologic transformation (HT). The statistics are that every year the chance of transformation goes up 3%.
We decided that I would come back in three months then we could maybe wait 6 months before another visit.
Next Time… More Treatments.
