This website was created to help us keep our dear family and friends updated on Eileen’s battle with Stage 3 Lymphocyte Predominant Hodgkins Lymphoma.
We will be updating this website with the latest developments.
Eileen’s battle with cancer officially started on 10/16/08 with a confirmation from her physician that the sample they collected during a core needle biopsy was in fact lymphoma.What is surprising about this diagnosis was that it came as a complete surprise to not only her family physician, but Eileen herself.
The Reader’s Digest version of the story is that Eileen went to her family physician for a routine annual physical with absolutely no pain or symptoms.Given that she sees her physician every 4 months to have her HbA1c tested (she’s diabetic), she viewed the visit to be more of an annoyance and assumed that nothing would have changed in the last 4 months.Within 10 days of that routine annual physical, Eileen was diagnosed with Stage 3A Diffuse Large B-Cell non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.
What has amazed almost everyone is that had it not been for Eileen’s health benefits through her employer, her physician would not have ordered a chest x-ray, since it was not a routine test, nor had she complained of any chest or stomach pain.The swollen lymph nodes were found in her abdomen, chest and pelvis. Basically, Eileen would have probably continued life unaware that she had cancer until it had spread causing other health problems!
Eileen has since undergone 8 rounds of R-CHOP chemotherapy and responded favorably to the treatment however, they discovered 2 cancerous lymph nodes in November 2009. She also learned that her cancer is not Large Diffuse B-Cell Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, but rather Lymphocyte Predominant Hodgkins Lymphoma. She has been referred to The James Cancer Hospital, in Columbus Ohio for additional chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant.
Eileen’s approach to almost everything is to “go at it with guns blazing” and her battle with cancer will be no different.She will be back running marathons, scuba diving with sharks, jumping out of perfectly good planes and doing her “dare-devil” type activities before she knows it!
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