A Week of Decisions

Here we are...five weeks into our journey with the "C" word and it's time to make a few decisions. I couldn't be more ready to get this party started. For those of you who know me well," patient" is not a word typically used when descibing my disposition. Especially by my husband. One of my largest personal struggles throughout the last few weeks has been maintaining my composure (a.k.a...sweetness) while trying to schedule Dave doctor's appointments, get results from testing, and even sometimes talking to a real person on the other end of the line. The medical field can be very challenging, at best, on certain days. Receptionists have said to me..."We can't get him in for three weeks because he is a new patient." My mom has told me several times that I must be very nice to these people as they are going to be a large part of our lives over the next few months, and I get this...but I want to say, "Of course he is a new patient...having an oncologist isn't quite like having a dentist. We all have teeth, so we all need a dentist...we don't all have cancer...you get the idea. :) But I have learned quickly and have made many friends at these offices. :) Dave would love to fill all of you in on these stories...he finds them wildly entertaining.

So, now that we have been able to get our initial appointments scheduled we can officially call Dave a "patient" in these practices and won't have to wait as long for follow-up visits. Dave and I spend a lot of time talking about small victories...this definitely qualifies as a small victory from my stand point.

Friday we got a call from Dr. Kuebler saying that Dave has been staged. He is considered to be a stage 4 Follicular Lymphoma patient. Please keep in mind before you freak out that we suspected this would be the case. Dr. Blum had told us 95% of people diagnosed with this disease are diagnosed at stage 4. This means that he has swollen lymph nodes throughout his entire body with involvement in his bone marrow. We won't know how much bone marrow is effected until this week. Dr. Kuebler ony gets confirmation via phone of bone marrow involvement, he isn't given a percentage until he is able to read the report. The upside to this is that Dave's bloodwork came back perfect last week. The doctor confirmed that if all of his bone marrow was affected, his red and white blood cell count would be off and it isn't...small victories, right?

The other part of the equation to remember is that Stage 4 Follicular Lymphoma is not like Stage 4 Breast cancer. Treatment doesn't necessarily change based on the stage, it is based more on Dave's symptoms. And remember, he doesn't currently have any. You also must remember that treatment typically responds the same at all stages. We just need to decide what that treatment will look like.

This leads me to Our Week of Decisions. We know that Dr. Kuebler likes The Wait and See Approach. This pretty much throws what little amount of patience I have out the window, but the more we read, the more this plan does make sense. Dr. Blum likes the Clinical Trial Approach using a combination of drugs that are not very evasive and have been fairly successful in patients. The hope here is that Dave would go into remission for several years before needing a more dramatic treatment. It's only eight, one-hour sessions. Don't worry, I've reiterated that the baby is coming in 58 days...hence my sense of urgency to get this party started. :) But we musn't forget our appoinment with Dr. Moore, this Wednesday. After we meet with him, we will decide what the plan is going to be.

Dave and I have found an unbelievable amount of strength in ourselves and within each other throughout this process. We are continually overwhelmed by the support we have received from friends and family members. I don't know how he does it, but my husband wakes up every morning and loves life. He is amazing in more ways than I would ever be able to describe. We find ourselves laughing more and living more than we did a month ago...and that isn't a small victory, it's a big one!