 |
| Click here for the whole opening crawl: http://www.starwars.com/play/online-activities/crawl-creator/index.jsp?cs=uufqk8fsrv |
Sometimes, especially after a trilogy, additional sequels are not welcomed.
That's certainly the case right now for me. After three bouts with cancer, and many more different kinds of treatments, I had hoped to have finished my Hodgkin's lymphoma saga. But no. We're all going to be treated to an unwanted new episode.
Yesterday I received the results from my most recent PET/CT scan. New cancerous lymph nodes are showing up. One area we had hoped was residual or inactive has increased in intensity (which means it's showing more cancerous activity). This is all bad news.
My doctor has a plan though. Up until now I've been taking a significant amount of immuno-suppresant medications to try and keep the graft versus host disease (GvH) under control. Though I'm still struggling with GvH, we're going to reduce the drugs keeping my shiny new immune system at bay and hope that it attacks the cancer at full force. (This also involves hoping that it doesn't attack my skin, mouth, eyes, or gastrointestinal system, but if it does there are alternative ways to treat that GvH.)
I'll also do another two rounds of Adcetris treatment, which will ideally quash what new bits of cancer have appeared. That is the same treatment I did in order to prepare for my most recent stem cell transplant (click here to read more about my first Adcetris treatment). It was insanely expensive, but had almost no side effects and completely eliminated the cancer. I'm hoping for a repeat performance.
So to sum up: dark and cancerous forces are again at work, but this battle is far from over.
