The Waiting Game

Let's start with the city comparison game. This blog entry was brought to you by Suisun City, California. That's right folks, a whole city! Except it's just a name in this case. That said, we're nearing the 30,000 visitor mark. That's a lot of people.

It's a boring town, 45 minutes outside of San Francisco. Yay!

In other news, I've been having some issues with my PICC line. Well, not exactly the line itself, but instead the dressings. No matter what kind of sticky covering they put over it, I seem to get an allergic reaction. I've never been so itchy in my life! The nurses have redressed it this afternoon and I am 'sampling' a more sensitive dressing until Wednesday.

Ahhhh, that's the spot.

Let's move on to the more important part. I had my first scan two months ago. Since then, I've been receiving chemotherapy treatment to destroy lymphoma. Today was the first step in seeing how successful the treatment has been up to now. I underwent a PET-CT (refer to the blog entry on 20th November - "Being Scanned") which uses a radioactive glucose to make my tumours glow bright under a special detector. The radiographer will then compare this to my previous scan to see the progress.

Laying perfectly still for 90 minutes. A selfie doesn't count as movement.

If the treatment appears to be working well, the doctors will continue the ABVD regimen. If there is no improvement, I've been informed that the most likely action would be the more intense, life-consuming BEACOPP regimen. Honestly, I don't know much about that type of chemotherapy but I've read it involves 3-4 hospital treatments a week, compared to my current once a fortnight.

We expect to have some results on Thursday.

And yes, I'm quite anxious. Like I keep saying, my insides are out of my control. It will be interesting to see if they've been busy. I really hope they have.

SHARE

Joshua Lerner

Hi! I’m the 'star' of Livin' With Lymphoma. The blog was founded on the 31st October 2013, on the day I was diagnosed with Stage 4B Hodgkin's lymphoma. I hope you find it funny and informative.

• 
• 
• 
• 
•