Only Good News

On the list of things that one would want to hear from their husband's oncologist are:

"This will not affect your longevity."
"You will get over this."
"This is not going to help me pay for my kids school."
"This is really an indolent cancer."

Today Drew and I got to hear all of these statements from Dr. Miller, the head lymphoma specialist at the UMC Cancer Center. As a bonus Dr. Miller also added, "one might have more difficulty getting rid of a wart than getting this out of you."

Needless to say, we were very encouraged by our appointment today. In short, Drew's cancer is very rare and slow. Most hematology oncologists only see 1 of these in a career and the cancer center, which specializes in Lymphoma and sees patients from all over the SW, has only had 30 cases of lymphocyte predominant Hodgkin's in the past 5 years. Given the preliminary physical examination and the fact that Drew has no symptoms it is unlikely that any other lymph nodes are affected. The next step will be for Drew to get a PET/CT scan, which will happen in the next week or so. If other nodes are affected, Drew will undergo a "gentle chemotherapy" (doctor's words) that would involve 1 treatment every 3-4 weeks for a total of 6 treatments. This kind of chemotherapy is not expected to make Drew that sick other than feeling a little fatigued and nauseated for 1-2 days after a treatment (sounds no worse than the first trimester of pregnancy). If no other nodes are affected (since the only malignant node was already removed) a viable option would actually be to take a wait and see approach. In this scenario, Drew would get scanned every 3 months for the next few years and over time the interval between scans would gradually increase. The worst part of the appointment was that poor Drew had to get a bone marrow biopsy. He has nothing good to say about this procedure and described it as the worst pain ever.

Thanks to everyone that has been sending us warm thoughts and for your love and support.