My Doctor Levels With Me, and a Period of Reflection
July 8th, I had my blood drawn at Fred Hutch and met with my care team shortly thereafter. This was the big moment I had been waiting for, the one where I found out staging and next steps. The one when I’m handed my prognosis. Scared? No. Delighted to be finding out where to go from here, my likelihood of full recovery or whether or not I need to budget my time.
July 9th: I had my second carpal tunnel surgery today and will wait two or three weeks for it to heal. In the meantime, I can reflect on what my oncologist had to tell me.
I have Stage 3 follicular t-cell lymphoma. This is a subset of a subset of lymphomas. There are so many of them, and they are treatable—but not all of them are curable. Mine is a rare one and of the non-curable variety. But the research has found a few new protocols that can keep it in remission for a long time, sometimes several years.
My oncologist, Dr. Christina Poh, spelled out our first line of attack, a commonly used drug mixture known as CHOP. I will go down to Fred Hutch once a week every three weeks, six times. So…eighteen weeks of chemo. I’m a pretty tough old bird, and I’m confident that I’ll tolerate it. If Jane Fonda can, so can I! J Yup, she’s had it, and is confident to stay in a full remission.
My doctor wants me to participate in a clinical trial concurrently with the chemo. There is evidence that patients who add this extra drug to their CHOP protocol have a better chance of staying in remission. Once my hand surgery is healed, I’ll go back to the Hutch to sign these clinical trial forms and get scheduled for treatment. I’ll need to have a minor surgical procedure where they insert a port into my shoulder. It’s a permanent line into a major vein and will stay in place throughout my treatment. It’s convenient for infusions and blood draws because I won’t need to be injected every visit.
Dr, Poh looked right at me and said,
“You’ll either die from it or with it.”
In other words, the chemo either can’t be tolerated by me or it won’t put me into remission. In that scenario my life will slip away pretty quickly. But if I die with it, it will be subdued sufficiently to keep me functioning well and not bad enough to kill me. In my 80’s, I’ll die of something—maybe unrelated to cancer—and pass on from that.
But enough talk about death. I’ve been given a rare and wonderful opportunity to spend the rest of my life just as I want. My bucket list will be indulged, I will smell the roses with more appreciation than ever before. And just as I endeavor to live well through the gifts of my recovery, now I’ll have an opportunity to die well.