Tuesday August 27^th

Today is the day! Going to find out how far in I am and how big the fight. Still not feeling very confident. Gut tells me there is more throughout my body, hoping I am wrong! Longest morning ever, already exhausted and it is only 10:03 am. First appointment is 1:20 with an Oncologist, whatever that is.

Oncologist is very nice, I like him right off the bat! He wants to hear every symptom. Lot's of nodding, not too many odd looks. But when all is said and done he is in agreement that my symptoms don't add up. He confirms the tissue taken from the surgical biopsy  shows Non Hodgkins, Follicular Lymphoma.  I have grade indolent which means slow growing (believe it or not the fast growing is better, whoda thought) Stage III but more than likely Stage IV because he is pretty sure it is in my bone marrow. My CT scan shows some thickening like what is on my skull by my spine and one lymph node may be swollen by my abdomen. But my blood counts are good and blood tests show no sign of tissue damage.. Somewhere in here I have been told again that the bumps (not sure what one) has fractured my skull. This is not the first time I have heard this and this will be at least the second time I forget to ask where the break is.

He wants to do a bone marrow biopsy next to confirm his suspicions. He is away for the next week but offers to squeeze in my biopsy the next day if I am willing to come back. The results take a week and would be ready for when he came back so we opt for the next day appointment, the sooner the better. Then we can talk about treatment, chemo? radiation? Surgery is out that he is sure about.

The appointment with the neurosurgeon is just to confirm that my surgical incision is healing well. It is!! So now that surgical removal for all the other stuff is not an option, I am all done with the neurosurgeon for now.

But yet another test, have you kept track of how many that is? Let me recap.....MRI~fine needle biopsy~surgical biopsy~ct scan~ and 3 blood work up? Not even sure about that one. It has only been 4 weeks since MRI.

Tired.

~Demon Dragons~
  "Bleeding Out"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJEoxeW7JvQ