Introducing your Oncologist

Who would have guessed at age 29 that I would have an Oncologist?


I wouldn't have until a week ago. 


Dr. Zhang is great though. Tons of positive energy and a quirky sense of humor. 
We liked him immensely.  He was very positive about Lymphoma (high success rate of remission), though we are no longer calling it Hodgkin's until he has done a biopsy on the lymph node in my neck.




It will be removed within the next 2 weeks and he will use it as a basis on what exactly the cancer is.  On Thursday of this week I go in for a CT/PET scan which will show if the cancer has moved to any other lymph nodes or organs.


As of right now since we don't have a "Phase" for my cancer (1-4) we are not sure of what type of chemotherapy I will need. 


I will need some form of chemotherapy though. 


That sucks.


I think both Dan and I were hoping the Dr. would think that there could be a possibility that I wouldn't need chemo at all, but as Dr. Zhang said "I am from China and I believe in alternative medicine, but not for cancer. When you have cancer you don't mess around."


So we are not messing around and we are going with chemo.


Since that can cause fertility issues and we already have fertility issues, we are back to talking to our fertility specialist about our options for embryo/egg freezing so that after I am done with chemo I can still get pregnant.


So for those keeping track: Next step is PET/CT scan this Thursday, then surgery consult with ENT specialist to remove lymph node next week and then removal of lymph node sometime next week (TBD). Meeting with Dr. Zhang on June 21st to go over results for all the tests.


We'll know more soon, but as of right now we won't have to start chemotherapy until July at least.