Prognosis Update

I spent all day at the hospital today, and I feel I should fill you all in on my prognosis.

We saw Doctor Myint who is my oncologist. Here’s what he said:

I'm at Stage 4 Cancer with T-cell Lymphoma. It's very aggressive. I have to undergo six chemo and radiation treatments (that's five days in the hospital every three or four weeks, can't remember). I go in again on November 29th. He worked the schedule out so I could be home for Christmas (I'll go home on Christmas eve after my last treatment). He says at the end of all my chemo treatments (which will end up being approx. four and a half months), I'll be admitted into the hospital for a full month for a bone-marrow transplant (the cancer IS in my bone-marrow; he said there were two different things they were looking at in the bone-marrow. It wasn't in one part, but it WAS in another). They will "flatten" my bone-marrow during my stay in the hospital (destroy it; this will be the worst of the treatment, he said), and then reintroduce my own stem cells back into my body.

Good news: he says this will also likely put my MS in remission!!! I knew of another doctor doing this method on MS patients (one in Chicago). Turns out Myint WORKS WITH THIS GUY and they both made the discovery together!!! So, he said, while he can't "officially" say he's treating my MS, he actually WILL be. I was so wanting to do this with the doc in Chicago, but there was no guarantee I'd get in for this treatment, so I didn't sign up. I'm amazed that Myint was part of that same team of doctors! It gives me hope. I was thinking how horrible it would be to deal with cancer and then when that was done, to deal with MS.

Anyway, he said  his staff was shocked at how aggressive this cancer is and that it's a rare form of cancer. But because they've tackled it right away, they feel positive they'll be able to get rid of it. He said it responds positively to chemo and radiation treatments. So . . . He also said he WILL give us a copy of the FDA report which states that I got cancer from the MS drug I was on. He says it’s several MS drugs that can cause this, and not just the one I was on!

Anyway, it was hard news to receive, but I'm feeling positive and encouraged--especially with the MS news! Pray my body is strong enough to endure the treatments. So far, God has given me His strength to get through this. Pray that continues! My kids are counting on it. 

I'm exhausted and feeling lousy, otherwise. :-)

One last thing: they say the first few months after the release of a book are vital. Well, this all happened just as my book released, so I won't be able to market it the way I'd like. I asked God to be my publicist and take care of it all for me. I can see Him doing that already, but I don't want Him to get bored with it and move on to something else, lol. :-) Will you pray He'll continue that work for me? Thank you! xxx I have to laugh, because several of the doctors and nurses know about my book. Some have even bought it! I was passing out bookmarks from my hospital bed. I debated setting up a table for signings. :-)

Oh, and am I scared? Yes. I can't believe I'm in this fight. I'm taking things one day at a time to keep my sanity.

If you don't hear from me in reply to emails or whatever, please don't take it personally. I try to read everything, I just can't reply to everything. I might put updates on my blog on occasion. 

Hugs in Him,

Me