Finally! Some good news!

Today the doctor called about the PET scan. The actual doctor, not a nurse. 


I immediately thought the worst.  My heart stopped when I picked up the phone.


Dr. Zhang quickly quelled my fears though. He stated that the swollen lymph nodes in my  neck, under my arm and in my chest were cancerous. However, there aren't any concerns of the cancer being on my organs or in any lymph nodes below my diaphragm.

Image found here: http://lymphomation.org/stage.htm

This means in medical terms that I am in Stage 2 of Lymphoma. This is good news!


Stage 1 and 2 from what we have been told and have read are VERY treatable and don't necessarily take an aggressive form of chemo to beat. What we were worried about was that the cancer had gotten into my liver or my spleen which would cause more chemo and surgery to be done.


So all in all, this is the best news we have received since finding out I had cancer. 


The doctor also said he had received a memo from my infertility doctor about the steps we were taking to get embryos frozen before chemo. He was perfectly fine with the game plan as well as waiting to start chemo till we were done with it since I was at Stage 2. Also great news!


We now meet with the ENT surgeon on Thursday to discuss when we can have surgery for the removal of the lymph node in my neck. Hopefully we can fit it in between work and grad school which starts next week, so I don't have to miss anything!


All in all it was a good day.

I wanted a baby and all I got was cancer!

So I was sick for awhile. Ok, a long ass time. Pretty much the whole month of April. 
I had a fever.
Crazy fevers. Fevers of 103, if I stopped taking Tylenol. I took a lot of cold baths. Woke up every night shivering uncontrollably. Dan would hold me and try and warm me up since I felt like I was so cold I was going to freeze in our bed. Couldn't eat. Had an absolute hatred of any kind of food. Which if you know me is not normal.


I lost 15 pounds (yay!) but missed a bunch of work (boo!). I went to convenient care a lot where the Dr. just told me I had a bad case of the flu and I wasn't taking enough Tylenol.
 I finally went to my general practitioner and she ran a whole blood check up. Things looked weird at first but it was all put up to malnutrition due to me not eating for 3 weeks. Though I did find out I had Mono at some point in my life, but didn't have it now. I had a Vitamin D deficiency (that's what happens when you work 2 jobs, never see the sun) and they thought I had Lupus for about 5 seconds.


Finally May came and I began to feel more like myself.


I noticed though the lymph nodes in my neck were swollen. That was new. I finally called my general practitioner to see if I could get some tests done again.
We did more bloodwork and then had a chest X-ray done. The bloodwork came back fine but the chest X-ray showed more swollen lymph nodes. The Dr. called for a CT scan this time. 


At the same time this was going on I had a pelvic ultrasound and blood tests done due to some fertility issues I've been having. I received a phone call from my fertility Dr. that I had PCOS the same day I got a call from my GP saying I needed to come in that day to talk about my CT scan. Needless to say I was worried about both, but everyone was saying that everything was fine.


When we went to talk to my GP she said it could be lymphoma but was probably an infection leftover from when I was sick. Something viral that hadn't gone away.


I had a needle biopsy on my lymph node in my neck.


The next day the Dr.'s office called and and told me I had Hodgkin's Lymphoma. They actually told me on the phone! The nurse did apologize for doing so, but said the Dr. had to leave town and wouldn't be in the next day to meet with me. She said to make an appointment with an oncologist.


Tomorrow we go to the oncologist.