This is the first entry of my new blog. I was going to call it the Cancer Diaries, but I'm sure that that title has probably been appropriated at least several times by others in a similar boat, so instead, The Two Hundred Days will suffice.
It's purpose is to document my progress for the next 18 weeks or so as I undergo chemotherapy for my second go round with malignancy:
Be warned in advance that the mood and scope of these entries ranges through some major swings of mood and health since we are discussing my life and potential threats to its continued existence. Apologies to those who find my take on "organized religion" ( which may include your own) offensive. The fact that I take no real interest in your particular brand of "faith" has no bearing on my actual beliefs. Those are, for the most part, left out of the conversation, although they may occasionally arise from time to time.
Today is Thursday January 12th. Tomorrow will be Friday the 13th, a day that matters little at this point as today, I already got my full dose of bad luck for the year!
That is not strictly true. The day of the "bad luck" clearly started many months or perhaps even years ago. Today only the full extent of the situation was revealed.
The last 3 months has been an endless cycle of "hurry up and wait" moments as I eagerly awaited the rejection or confirmation of various assumptions (aka self diagnoses) on my health.
I now have been diagnosed with non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and more specifically I have been diagnosed with Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma as well as Follicular Lymphoma. These names, at this point mean little to me but the result is that I am dealing with a mix of aggressively progressing and moderately progressing disease. Its starting point has been determined to be in the left abdomen and initially made it's impact known when I started passing blood in my urine on a trip through Europe in September. So I am literally getting "Pissed Off!"
Staging is a measure of the progression of the disease and at this point I have been classified as Stage III A, which means that things are moving along PDQ ( pretty damn quick). My best guess was that I was in Stage I or early Stage II, just shows I'm no expert.
I have called today Day 200 since the chemo will take a couple of weeks to get started. It will then be repeated every 21 days for a total of 6 cycles. Adding in an extra 2 cycles ( on the odd chance that the 6 treatments alone don't work) brings me to an end point that is roughly 190 days away. I decided I should allow a little extra and "the Two Hundred Days" sounds a little more sensible than something like "191 and counting"
Any road up, I'm going to hold onto this and stack up my posts for a few weeks before I start rolling them out to the world. I imagine the style of my writing will be somewhat erratic as I bounce between moods.
Today I am still a little numb from the final diagnosis.
Lymphoma, typically has a 50% survival rate at the 5 year mark so I asked the physician what he felt my prognosis would be if I delayed or refused treatment.
His response, " At best a few months."
Wow, talk about a smack in the cojones with a large flat bat!!
Suffice to say, I have spent the balance of today watching my head spin around like Linda Blair in the Exorcist ( A movie that I laughed through most of!!) (Incidentally, the writer of that book died shortly after I wrote this update!)
Approaching 11pm, I am somewhat calmer and a little more resigned to my upcoming situation.
My plan is to count down to day 1 on perhaps a daily to weekly cycle depending on how things change. Shit happens!!!! And who better to deal with it than myself, who my Mother often called a "Proper Geordie Shit Stirrer." A title that I bear proudly!!! LOL
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