I was first diagnosed in September 2005, and underwent chemo-therapy for 4 months, 6 sessions every 3 weeks. This reduced the lymphoma to baseline levels and I was declared in remission.
It also left me with little energy and strength, and it took me another 3 months or so after treatment was finished to regain enough strength and energy to get back on my bicycle and train for the annual ride with a friend (who does a mile for every year on his birthday). He's a young whipper-snapper, so we did his 57 miles in august, and I felt that I was well on the way to recovery.
In november the lymphoma came back from remission, more aggressive than before, and I am now in chemo-therapy again. I've had the second course in this session. The drugs are different and more aggressive as well -- these cancer cells survived the last session, so the same drugs will not help anymore - that's evolution for you.
I did not lose my hair last time, but I am losing it this time (but it's only temporary ned). Chemo-therapy tends to attack all the fast growing cells in the body, so in addition to the cancer cell growth it can affect hair growth and the growth of new brain connections ...
One of the other effects of chemo-therapy is called "chemo-brain" and it affects short term memory and the ability to operate at your full mental capacity. Going in the first time I was not aware of how much this affected me. I noticed the loss in memory from continually forgetting little things, like shopping lists, and the ability issue from doing sudoku puzzles, but I wasn't really aware of the depths of this loss until later coming back out and regaining most if not all (I think) of those abilities in the months following the end of treatment.
I expect this to happen again this time, so I expect my input here to dip in quantity and quality for a while. It is not intentional, and I don't believe it will be permanent.
I've talked to other survivors and they have similar stories. I expect there are a number of people here who also have similar experiences and may want or need to talk about them. I am interested in those stories.
Because lymphoma is diffuse throughout the body radiation cannot be used without risk of damage to several organs. Chemo-therapy cannot eliminate it either, so this means that this cancer as yet has no complete cure, just treatment to hold it at bay. Research is focusing on stem cell and bone marrow transplants coupled with extreme chemo-therapy designed to kill as much of the cancer as possible - along with all the white blood cells and bone stem cells that produce new white blood cells, then injecting the new stem cells to make new lymph, hopefully without the cancer. This is the best hope for cure of this kind of cancer.
Of course fetal stem cells would offer even more chance of cure without rejection problems, but we are now 6 years further from this research -- due to narrow-minded religious dogma derived policy based on ignorance that declares unused and unwanted fetal cells more important than existing human life. So while I may have had some frustration at fundamentalists before over this issue, it has become a little personal now. I don't want to discuss the issue of stem cell research here, I just note this so that those who do have an objection to stem cell research can understand that my anger may be invoked at it. Nor will I apologize for or excuse my opinion on this matter -- it is how I feel.
If you want to help, you can sign up to World Community Grid and let your computer work on solving cancer among other problems confronting human life on this planet.
quote:More info (if you need it) at:
../projects_showcase/viewResearch.do To join go to World Community Grid After you join as a member, join our team by selecting "join a team" and then go to {T section page 3} to pick "Team EvC" to join ("Team" is part of the team name, so we are the Team EvC Team). To download the BOINC agent go to World Community Grid
I recommend the BOINC agent over the standard UD agent, as that one can cause jerky mouse action unless throttled down, and the throttle mechanism is not that good.
This too has become personal for me, but it is for ALL cancer victims (as well as Muscular Dystrophy and AIDS\HIV victims), not just for me: it can be for someone you know personally.
In closing I would like to say
I would like to discuss other stories of survival.
I do NOT want to discuss the pros and cons of stem cell research here.
Some people will feel they need to pray for me - personally I don't believe in the "power" of prayer (being a Deist), but go ahead if that is what you feel you need to do - all I ask is that you also let your machine do some "buddhist prayer wheel" type work by signing up at worldcommunitygrid.org and running the program with the unused portion of your computer.
I expect to survive this round, and come out riding 59 miles in august this year ... and getting my hair back.