Coffee Break.....Pull up a chair and get to know everyone!

[Sharlyn88]

Hello Hello! Welcome to Lets Make a Diagnosis! Just kidding! This was suggested by Fionn that we all start to introduce ourselves because there are so many newbies. And for some of us oldeies but goodies that are still around!

Here's my bio.....

I'm Sharlyn, I'm 32 years old. I have a 15 month old son that is the joy of my life.

In the summer of 2000 I developed a persistant cough. It would come and go about every 2 months. I was pregnant at the time and my OB/GYN put me on an antibiotic. That did not work so he said that I could have a chest x-ray if I wanted to. I was too scared because of my unborn child so I opted to wait. (If I would have had the xray I could have found out then what I had.) After the baby was born in Oct 2000 I became very very weak. I bled longer than I should have but I didn't think anything of it because it was my first child and I thought that was just normal. I started to have night sweats towards the end of my pregnancy (which is normal I was told) and they continued after birth. By December the night sweats were DRENCHING to the point that I would wake up every night with soaking wet hair and had to change my pj's too. Prior to this, in November, I started itching. My legs from my knees down were nothing but solid sores. Looked like I was literally eaten alive by mesquitos. (not likely in Nov/Dec in Ohio) I was sent to a dermotologist who told me it was just my nerves and if I did not stop, I would be scared for life. He gave me a cream and a pill (atarax) and sent me on my way. None of that helped. By Christmas time I was coughing so hard I was throwing up.

Finally, I went to my family doctor who happens to be high school friend and he ran some blood work. Found out that my Hemoglobin was down to 6.0 and he asked me if I was bleeding alot. I told him that I was spotting all the time since the birth of my son in October. He told me to call my OB/GYN now and get on birth control to stop my bleeding. Well, my OB/GYN said that he would handle this .....he tried to stop my bleeding and could not. It took 2 months of taking up to 4 BC pills a day to stop my bleeding. Also he put me on Iron 3 times a day. (talk about constipation!!!!!lol [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] )

Anyway, this was all in Jan. By Feb he knew that there was something else wrong. He sent me to a Hemotologist/Oncologist. This doc also tried for until May to get my counts up. In March of 2001 I BEGGED for a blood transfusion. I was SO WEAK I could not take care of my son. Thank God for my parents. By May I told the onc that if he didn't try something else I was going elsewhere. He took a very very small (size of a pea) lymph node out of my neck to have it biopsied. (sp) Came back on May 14th as Hodgkin's Lymphoma Stage IIIB.

Had all the normal tests after that....Bone Marrow (which I would rather give birth again than have another one of those!). xrays, CT Scans, PET Scans. Had my first treatment on June 7th, 2001. And I had a treatment every week for 12 weeks.

I was on the Stanford V regeimen and loved it! I only had to undergo treatments for3 months and my cancer was gone! I had no radiation either.

I had only 3 major side effects. After the first treatment my hands went completely numb from my wrists to my finger tips. Like when your hand falls asleep. The took me off of Vinblastine and all the feeling came back within 6 weeks. I lost nearly ALL my 10 inches of blond hair, and I gained 30 pounds from that terrible drug, Prednison!
YUCKY stuff!

5 months post chemo, I feel like I never had the disease. I have lost all the weight I gained and my hair is a short spike now.

I think a positive attitude, a sense of humor, and my son saved my life! I never once thought that I was going to die....not once! Nor did I miss a treatment, a shot, or a doctor visit.

My mother told me that if I have to be a cancer patient, then be the best darn cancer patient they have.....and I WAS! I made them look forward to see me every week, and in turn I could not wait until my Thursdays came.....that would be one more week to cross off my calandar!

I gained so much weight that I told my Onc that if he didn't take me off of that Prednisone I was going to have to get my maternity bras back out!!! lol lol [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
I always kept them laughing!

Well, that's my story.....sorry I talk so much! I tend to do that! [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img]

[fionn]

OK, here’s my story . . .

In early July 2001 I found a smallish soft lump in my neck just above the collar bone. It didn’t go down after a day or two so I made an appointment to see my GP that next week.

I went to see my GP, he duly admired my lump, and asked me questions. He decided to give me a shed load of blood tests to try and figure out what it was. I think he was thinking glandular fever at that time. Although my happy feeling fine good health was a bit of a down on that theory. Well I had the blood tests and they came back with seriously low iron – I was anaemic.

So I began on my three iron pills a day (scrummy!) and a few weeks later I had another appointment with my GP to talk about why I was anaemic. After deciding I had no heavy periods, ate plenty of iron etc and in short there was no good reason why I should be anaemic he prodded me in the stomach a few times and referred me to a doctor in the hospital, he said it was to see why I was anaemic.

In early September my appointment came up. My parents were in France at the time so I walked down to the hospital from school. To my surprise when I saw the doc he wasn’t particularly interested in my anaemia, much more so in this lump I’d practically stopped thinking about. It was a bit harder no as well and didn’t move about as much. Anyway he prodded me, asked me questions and victimised the poor student doctor who was looking in. I asked him what he thought it was – he said it could be either an infection, something odd called sarcoidosis or something, or lymphoma which was a malignant thingy-bobby. It was a pretty odd feeling when I heard the word malignant . . . .

Anyway he sent me off for chest x rays and blood tests and told me to bring the x-ray films straight back. I did . . . and when I went in again he said he’d decided to schedule me for a biopsy and urgent CT scan. I asked him what he thought it was, he ummed and ahhed and said that he was pretty sure it was a lymphoma. OK. I probably had cancer. I went home and began researching lymphoma on the internet. I hoped I had HD not NHL.

Well a few days later , about a week I think, they squeezed me into surgery thing at the end of the day and I had my lump chopped out. The next day I had my CT scan. When they’d finished the technician came out and asked me how long I’d been feeling poorly. I told him I hadn’t. Note: when this happens take it as a bad sign. I had a 13x6x8cm tumor in my chest pressing against my wind pipe. I’d had a cough the past few days. I thought it was the remains of the back to school cold. My haemotologist thinks otherwise.

About 5 days later I went into the hospital. They’d told me to go up to the cancer ward. This is also a bad sign when you get biopsy result. He told me I had Hodgkin’s Disease and that the CT scan had shown it wasn’t beyond the diapragm and I didn’t have B symptoms which were good signs. And had a roughly 70 – 80% survival chance. He said they’d give me a chemo course of about 6-8 months. Then he reffered me down to the haemotologist who would be treating me (well not some much reffered more like walked me down there – luckily the hameotologist had a clinic that day so there was no delay).

The haemotologist also prodded me and talked to me about the fertility thing and looked at my CT scans. He said they’d use ABVD chemo which was a standard protocol and that he reccommended that I had the egg freezing especially as the delay would be minimal in my case. He phoned me up that evening to say that he’d decided that a weeks radiotherapy was necessary first of all because if the tumor swelled with chemo I could stop breathing (later he told me I could have died within days – that shut me up!) and I had an appointment the next day at a fertility place, and a bone marrow biopsy the day after.

OK, I’ll hurry up now as it’s turning rather long. I began radiotherapy the next Monday whilst having hormone injections to stimulate ovulation. I waited a week having more hormones and had the eggs out the next Monday (I slept through it). Two days after that I bagan my fist of 6-8 months of chemo. Right now I’m about to have chemo number 7, I’m still not sure how many I have in total. I’ve been on Neupogen since chemo number 2 because of pathetic neutrophil counts.

It’s not as bad as I thought it would be, my hair is down to about a cm or two right now and very thin, I wear a hat because my ears get cold. All the other body hair is gone or going (no leg shaving yeehah!). I haven’t really had much in the way of sickness, just sleepyness and some arm pain especially with chemo 4ish. Chemos are even kind of fun because my friends come with me.

I was 17 when diagnosed, 18 now. I’m in my last year of school and I’m trying to continue as normal. I got into the uni I want to with an offer that means I’m just about certain to get the grades! So next year I’ll be studying natural sciences at uni, hopefully. In my freetime I like juggling, reading, cooking, writing silly stories, and making my webpage www.geocities.com/fionnthegr8

All in all cancer isn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. At times it’s even kind of fun!

Sorry this is so long!

Fionn [img]images/icons/cool.gif[/img]

[CHILD OF GOD]

I am 1 month post treatment. 4cycles of ABVD & 20 rad. treatments. I had a clear PET scan following treatment. I figured I'd start with the good news first. In june of 2001 I went to the Dr. because I just couldn't ignore this little painless lump on my neck. after an ultrasound,2CTscans, and a niddle biopsy followed by a tisue biopsy I was diagnosed. HD IIA,NS. Iam 31 years old, never been sick in my life. I had just got engaged 6 months prior to diagnoses. Chemo and radiation was hard on me but I made it through. Now I'm planning my wedding (JULY 13th) and once my breating is back to normal, which I'm praying will be soon, I'll be back to my old self again. ps didn't lose all my hair , I still had a little, but I noticed it's starting to grow back [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]. I'm glad my wedding dress will look so much better with some hair on my head [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[kiwi]

Hey COG, you're getting married on kiwiboy's 40th birthday [img]images/icons/cool.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img].

[shmeather]

well i cant pass up an opportunity to talk about myself so here i go...

im heather, im 19 right now.
i found a lump in my neck in november 2000.
i was 18 and away at school at the university of victoria in victoria, bc (originally from ottawa, ontario). i ignored it for a little bit since i had throat infections (sometimes strep, sometimes not) a bunch of times that fall. when the strep/infection came back i went to the doctor and asked about the lump. she felt it and said it was just a swollen gland and that it would go down. so i waited and pushed it out of my head since i had other things to do. i moved back home for the summer and found a second lump, smaller that moved around right beside the original guy. i ignored this one for abit although it caused me more concern than the first one.

one morning i woke up and my neck was sort of sore and i was beginning to wonder why the lumps were still around so i went to the doctor (june 2001?). she felt them but said they could be many things. but she set up an ultrasound for me.

i went to the ultrasound and the guy doing that asked if i had had a chest x-ray. i didnt understand the relevance at the time but told him no. this was mid summertime by now so everyone and their dog was on holidays exactly when i needed them. i went to another doctor to get the results from the ultrasound. it mentioned enlarged lymph nodes in the neck. the doctor said that could indicate many things but basically that i had no cause for concern and should wait for my doctor to return from holidays.

so i saw her in august 2001 and she suggested i see surgeon. his title "surgeon" didnt even lead me to believe id be needing surgery. he felt around and told me i needed a lymph node biopsy. at this point i had read about hodgkins while looking up enlarged lymph nodes on the internet but didnt think much of it. so i was pretty upset with the idea of having a scar on my neck. convinced that it would be for no good reason.

so i had the lymph node biopsy on august 28, 2001. general anesthetic and the cut was about 2 cm long (just short of an inch for the non-metric). it has shrunk to about a cm now so im really impressed with that. he took out the smaller of the two lumps.

on september 1st i flew back to victoria, bc to start my 2nd year of university. i got the stitches out after being there for about 5 days.

on september 14th my mom called me in the middle of the afternoon. i knew the results were to come but i convinced myself it'd be nothing and had kind of pushed it out of my mind. when she called in the middle of the afternoon (not cheap time!) i knew something was up. she sounded upset and before she told me anything she said i would be ok. that scared me. she told me i had hodgkins lymphoma and i wasnt sure if that was cancer. she told me id need chemotherapy and radiation and i still wasnt sure (geez). i asked if it was and thats when everything stopped and sort of stood still. or just melted.

the first thing i wanted to do was buy a vcr since my house didnt have one yet. so that night a friend and i walked up the street and i bought a vcr and then took it next door to rent a video. i dont think ive ever spent as much money as i did in september last year.

SOO, then i saw an oncologist on the 19th. i had a ct scan and a bone marrow biopsy in the next couple weeks. it was determined i was stage 2A, mixed cellularity. the onc originally thought i only had cancer in my neck and told me id get 2 months of chemo and 6-8 weeks of radiation. that was switched to 6-8 months of chemo and no radiation when there was more cancer found in my chest. so i decided that i would move back home. that was very hard and very upsetting to do but i do think i made the right decision. my first chemo was in victoria and i flew home a few days after that. i just had my 8th treatment today and im going to have a ct scan soon to see if ill get 12 or 16 treatments.

side effects haven't been too too bad. nausea for 3 days and just general crummy-feeling. after that im good to go. ive been snowboarding a few times and my family is going to vermont next weekend so that'll be nice. i do neupogen for 5 days after every chemo and that is going fine and helping. i had one episode of a high fever putting me in the hospital for a few hours. my main complain right now is boredom.

when this is all over (hopefully march) i hope to work at a summer camp for kids with cancer, drive my car back to victoria (looong drive) for the summer, turn 20, go on an alaskan cruise with the family in july, grow my hair back and start my 2nd year of university over again in the fall. and i plan to do it all, just you wait and see.