Ready for Big Round #2

So - all systems go for going back in the hospital for Big Round #2 - a big round or R-EPOCH starting tomorrow night.  Had a meeting with Dr. Fowler and team and all is looking good. I handled the chemo well and they don't see any changes.  They are happy that the lymph nodes have shrunk to nothing and that I don't have any pain - they are actually very pleasantly surprised.

So 5 more days of chemo. But we are more prepared. Take the damn stool softener right from day 1 and take the anti-nausea starting on day three when it always seems to hit me.  Keep the exercise going and get ready to watch some hoops.

While this is going on - there is prep for the potential for STEM cell replacement if it is necessary.
Because my cancer cells have mutated with two very bad traits - they are ultra fast growing and ultra hard to kill - the only real way to ensure I am cured and not just in remission temporarily is something called stem cell transplant.  Because I have such an aggressive cancer if there is just one or two cells hanging around at the end of normal treatment, I could relapse and have to go through chemo again in a few years.  

This will be a tough call when the time comes but with the data our doc will have, we will be able to make the right call. Stem cell transplant - has over 90% cure rates for the right patients and I seem to be one of them.  

What that means - when I go into remission after a chemo treatment (probably treatment 3 or 4 hopefully), meaning that they cannot see any cancer on my petscan. Then they set up for autologous stem cell treatment.  That means they are going to harvest my own stem cells.  Not get stem cells from a donor which is much harder.

They have to change the ports - my arm port will get removed and they need to install a chest port.  Then they are going to give me a normal chemo run in the hospital.  But after that chemo when I go home unlike a normal run they are then going to pump me full of drugs that help my stem cells produce like crazy. Instead of one stomach shot, it will be two. Because my bone marrow is producing a ton of cells there is chance I will have aching bones during this phase.  

Lots of blood tests during this time - when they see a shit ton of stem cells in my blood, they have me come in to the hospital to harvest.  They hook me up to a machine for about 4 hours and they pull my blood out of one port, through the harvesting machine, then pump the blood back in another port.  They freeze the stem cells. 

Then it back in the hospital where they give me an ultra high dose of chemo and kill everything in my body.  This is pretty harsh and tough. Once everything is dead, including every single stray cancer cell, they pump in all those good stem cells from the freezer to repair everything and I am cured.  It's a tough month in the hospital - to make sure I don't get sick since I have no immune system.  Then monitor for 30 days after the hospital stay to monitor blood work and make sure everything is working. 

Not gonna lie - it is a tough month. But in the end, the odds may justify doing it.  Too much risk otherwise. Of the three other lymphoma patients we know, not one has been told they need this. It is because of the high risk nature of my particular nasty cancer cells that they say I am the best candidate for this.  But they really don't know how nasty the cells are until they see how they respond to chemo - so we wait for the first Petscan right before Chemo #3

On the plus side - there is a chance they could do this after the 3rd or 4th treatment, meaning I get actually may end the chemo a little early.  But that is too soon to tell. 

So - there is always something to think about with cancer. 

But right now it is on to chemo and kicking some more cancer cells out of my body.