Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Six Month Follow Up

As I sit here waiting to go to my oncologist's office for my follow up, I cannot help but feel nervous and jittery.  I know I have not had any secondary symptoms lately, and that I feel terrific, but there's that gnawing tension of knowing that a bad blood test and right back into the nightmare.  I hate it.  For me, the waiting has always been the hardest part.

How can I not wonder, 'what if the test is bad?'.  Well, it's back to CT scans, PET scans and more chemotherapy.  Scarily, I know the next round of treatment, it's my last available weapon against my NHL, a donor Stem Cell Transplant.  I know it will involve months of preparatory chemotherapy, another trip through the isolation unit, and who knows how long in recovery.  My brother is a perfect match, so I don't have to fret over finding a donor.  I even know the procedure carries a 25% mortality rate, mostly from the deadly graft vs. host disease from the transplanted immune system.

But, none of that makes the waiting to go to Dr. Grinblatt's office any easier.  I hate this disease.  I hate what it has done to my life, my family's life and the legacy of waiting for the shoe to drop.  I understand there are gifts from my journey, I get there are insights on life that only people in my position can have, and I understand that doing so well in my trial may serve in some small way as inspiration for others.  Yet, I still hate waiting......

T

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Chavez - good to see you are still doing well, I was just wondering if you had dropped the website altogether and then you post twice in two days.

-Bung