Dana Farber Visit

The final score is radiation 3, chemotherapy nil. Sorry to keep you all wondering and waiting for the news. What can I say but BUSY. Dr. Fisher concurred that I should get radiation as part of my Hodgkin's treatment. I will begin rads next Wednesday in Bath, about 1 hour from my house...everyday... smack in the middle of the day. Not ideal, but whatever.

Dennis and I packed up Sadie and we went on a family trip to Boston for the day. We left the house at ten of nine. All was going smoothly until we got to Boston. I was navigating, and at this point the directions were reading fast and furious with only something stupid like .2 miles between them. I jumped the gun and directed us toward the Kendall Square exit. The subsequent directions weren't making sense! Well, duh. Rereading the directions, we were supposed to be heading toward KENMORE Square. After much tense discussion and a lecture from Dennis on how to read him the directions (Blah, blah, blah) we found our way back onto Storrow Drive. The rest of the drive was uneventful and wouldn't you know there was a park across from the hospital. We gave Sadie a walk in the park after lunch where she staked her claim in Boston. We ate lunch at a little mexican food dive. The neighborhood was mostly residential so there wasn't much choice outside of the hospital cafeteria which must irk the hospital staff.

Dr. Fisher was very confident and very knowledgeable. First, he wanted to know my understanding of how things were going. Cool. I got to talk. Then he laid out the reasons he is in favor of radiation. He said there are no studies on chemo alone versus combined therapy for people like me. By that he means I am Stage II but I am also unfavorable. Unfavorable characteristics are bulky mass, having B symptoms, and having affected nodes in multiple regions. Having one or more of these labels you as unfavorable. Sound harsh, doesn't it? My single unfavorable characteristic is the latter. He would NOT classify me as bulky. And based on my latest PET scan report, he'd say I was clean. Finally, he said that IF there are any residual cancer cells left, 2 more cycles, even 100 more cycles of chemotherapy, won't kill them. If it hasn't worked on them yet... This is why the radiation.

When we talked about secondary cancers as a side effect, he had good news for us. The studies show a much higher incidence of secondary lung cancer in smokers than non-smokers. And he said chances of secondary breast cancer have been shown to be drastically reduced for radiation patients over 30. That's me! It's good to be old in this instance.

Hypothyroidism is a common possibility from radiation to the neck. The medical world feels this is not a big deal because you can take a pill everyday for the rest of your life to correct this. Otherwise, my temporary side effects will likely be a sore esophagus, fatigue, and a skin burn on my chest.

I feel much better going into radiation after speaking with Dr. Fisher. I'm very glad we went down for the second opinion. I will be saying goodbye to my port soon. No need to keep it in, and just maybe my arm will return to normal size and my chest won't appear so "veiny". At the very least, I will be able to stop the Coumadin by March and can go snowboarding again!

Radiation has a lot of immediate positives. I just needed to know the benefits of it would outweigh my risks. Dr. Fisher new just the perspective I was looking for and put it this way. Radiation would increase my chance of staying in remission by 10% and the risk of secondary cancers are about 1%.

I spent two hours food shopping on Monday reading labels and looking for items I've never bought before. That was a bit frustrating, but it will get easier. I planned a week's worth of meals including lentil soup, miso soup, and tofu and bought snacks with no sugar in them. So far so good, and it's kinda fun meal planning and trying new recipes. I need to research foods that promote healthy thyroid function to help my poor little thyroid through the spanking it's going to get with radiation.

Gonna go make me some fish with kale for dinner. The unfavorable one is signing off. Take care everyone.