Thursday, February 7, 2008

What to do?

It's a bit weird to have an oncologist---a doctor who specializes in cancer treatment---ask you, "What do you want to do?"

But that's what happened yesterday.

The results of the bone marrow test came back positive: yes, the lymphoma is in there, too. No surprise to me. I fully expected it, given that I figure I have had this for many months, maybe a year or more, before it was officially diagnosed. I can look back at family snapshots from last July and see the enlarged lymph nodes right in the pictures.

So, this puts the lymphoma / leukemia officially at "stage 4," to borrow the vocabulary of the cancer specialists. But still, it's the slow growing type and comparative statistics say the "doing nothing" is as good as taking aggressive action.

The alternatives? (a) chemo therapy (with all its ugly side affects); (b) monoclonal antibodies (sort of a man-made white blood cell to boost your immunity (with or without the chemo; some successes with using it alone; possible allergy to it); r (c) focus on nutrition, exercise, and sleep.

I asked for a test for H. pylori. Might as well rule it out or see if it is there. They drew a blood sample for that on the spot.

I asked for a referral back to the ear, nose, throat specialist so as to address the nighttime gagging and sleep problem. There will be no adequate sleep until that gets fixed. (See yesterday's blog entry for discussion about that!)

The oncologist suggested we get a second opinion. He will try to arrange that at the Dana Farber Institute in Boston. He asked when I would want to go. I suggested any day during The Red Sox's opening home stand.

Guess I'll go study-up on monoclonal antibodies. Sounds like it might be a real possibiity with few or no negative implications.