Symptoms and Staging

Up to this point I have not shown any of the classic symptoms of someone who has Hodgkin's Lymphoma. I'm looking at this as a positive and I'm hoping that this in an indicator that the disease has not spread throughout my body. In any case a process for staging needs to take place. And so this past week and all of next week I will be going through the staging process. Staging is going to help the doctors determine how far along the cancer has progressed (i.e. has it spread to liver, gallbladder, spleen, other lymph nodes throughout the body, etc.). Once that process is complete, there will be a plan of action as to what type of treatment I will be going through. First indicators is that it will be 24 weeks of chemotherapy with a possibility of complimentary treatments of radiotherapy. The tests that I will be going through this week are a respiratory test for my lungs, PET scan to check my heart, another CT abdominal scan to see if there are additional tumors in the lower half of my body, a bone marrow extraction to see if my bone marrow has been affected and additional blood tests. Out of all the tests, the bone marrow extraction does not seem appealing to me. Jamming a needle inside my pelvic bone and extracting liquid seems quite painful. That's the first test I'll be going to on Monday. In addition to those tests, I will also make a deposit to the local sperm bank in case Amy and I want to have another child.

Part 3 - The Diagnosis

When I arrived at the emergency room the doctor on staff ran a couple of EKG tests. From the EKG they noticed that there was an indicator that there may be a blood clot. And so they ordered a CT scan for my chest. Initially I thought that a blood clot was definitely a possibility since I do quite a bit of travel and was actually in Beijing and Singapore three weeks ago. When the results from the CT scan came back the doctor on staff came into my room quite serious and said, "Mate, good news is that there is not a blood clot. But there is an 11 cm mass that we found. Mate nothing grows in this part of your chest. I suggest you call the Misses and have her come in." At that point an oncologist, Dr. Jennens, was called in and he did an examination of my lymph nodes and concluded that we were possibly looking at a lymphoma. He then told me that I will need surgery to remove part of my lymph node in order for a biopsy to be done. This was to give them clearer picture of what we were dealing with. At this point I contacted Amy, gave her the story and she proceeded to come in to the hospital with Olivia. Amazing that abdominal pains from cold medicine has led me down this path of finding out I have cancer. I think I'm very fortunate. The following day I went into surgery, they removed a piece of my lymph node, a biopsy on the lymph node took place, multiple blood tests were done and it was concluded by Jennens that I had Hodgkin's Lymphoma. My case was then turned over to Dr. Zimet who became my new oncologist. The following day I checked out of the hospital.

Part 2 - The Ambo

In the ambulance, Dave and Sean treated me like a cardio patient since I had abdominal pains moving up into my chest and neck region. From my perspective I really did not think that I was having a heart issue, but I left it to the boys to figure that out. I remember clearly what Dave told me about 3-5 times, "if we deal with what possibly may be the most serious, then everything else will fix itself."  If only he knew.  After attaching me to an EKG and taking my blood pressure I was given a chewable asprin, a nitrate and some morphine to chill me out. Once I was stable they took me to Epworth Richmond Hospital on my request. I really appreciate that Dave and Sean did a great job with me. This is only the second time I was in an ambulance (first was with my motorcycle accident) and I felt like they took really good care of me. At the time prior to their arrival, though, I was a bit pissed that it did take them so long to show up.  I guess I'm used to the CFD showing up within a couple of minutes.

Part 1 - Pre Hospital

For a couple of weeks prior to the 16th of October, Olivia was working on getting through a runny nose, sneezes, etc.  Then from the 16th to the 19th, Amy developed a serious stomach flu (vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration, excessive loss of energy).  On the 19th it appeared that I caught the bug without the vomiting and diarrhea.  For the entire day I was zapped of all energy.  That evening at around 6 PM after I had a little bit of soup and I decided to take some over the counter cold tablets and crash for the evening.  Thank God Amy was able to care for Olivia until her bedtime.  Then at 3 AM I woke and took another round of cold tablets.  Then at 5 AM while Amy was feeding Olivia I woke with severe pains in my abdomen and had shortness of breath.  It was the first time in my life that I did not even hesitate to call an ambulance.  I knew for sure that something was seriously wrong.  Amy called triple 0 and an ambulance came.