Evan Carter

First post: Jan 31, 2017 Latest post: May 6, 2017
Evan was diagnosed with cancer on May 27,   He has been fighting this hideous disease since June 1st  2016.  Actually, if you want to get technical its; Stage III Classical Hodgkin Lymphoma, nodular sclerosis type.  
After having  pain in his right shoulder and chest area, he went to the doctor. The doctor did an xray and said it could be his posture. My guess, is that it wasn't showing up yet because there was nothing on the X-ray.  He gave Evan instructions to do some physical therapy. After no pain relief from doing weeks of therapy he went to see Dr Joe. 
Dr Joe Virga is our chiropractor in Lindstrom.  Dr. Joe did an exam, took an X-ray and with one look at the X-ray he ordered an MRI  ASAP.
Thank you Dr.Joe, he knew something was up!
Well, long story short, Evan had an MRI that lead to a PET scan that lit up in a few places . What a whirlwind of appointments to come!  So first came the biopsy. After the biopsy showed it was Hodgkins lymphoma, Evan had test after test, pre chemo stuff, lungs, heart etc.. 
Then came the 1st port...not so much fun. 
His first chemo went fine, until day three, he spiked a high fever.  That led to two ER visits within twelve hours, that led to a hospital stay that lasted over a week long. Yuck!  Evan had a very serious sepsis infection in his blood stream, triggered by the port.  Out came the port, in went the PICC line.  For four weeks Evan had to give himself antibiotic infusions every 8 hours through the PICC line.  After four, maybe it was six weeks of doing that, out went the PICC line, in went a new port, number two if your counting.
After four chemotherapy treatments he had a PET scan (in august) that showed the treatments were working , the cancer was going away! YAY ! 
Chemotherapy continued every other week.  He started having trouble with his port again....I'll spare you the details, but out went # 2 and in went # 3.. Such a pain!
So After 12 rounds of chemo and 8 months later, he had a PET scan to see if he would need a blast of radiation to finish up his treatment. 
We were hoping like crazy he wouldn't need it. He just wants to get back to living his life!!
Well, the PET scan showed a few active spots that didn't look good.  So he had a biopsy on Monday to see what it was. The results of the biopsy showed more Hodgkins Lymphoma.
Gheeze no break for this guy! 
That brings us to today 1/23/2017 his doctor told us it is now called "Refractory Hodgkin Lymphoma", still stage 3.
So the fight to deal with this hideous disease continues. Evan will now be working towards a cure via a stem cell transplant for the next 5/6 months. He will be at Abbott  Hospital for the first month with a week and a half off in between each chemo.  Then he will be moving over to the U of M for a very high regime of in hospital chemotherapy and the transplant. Its going to be a long and tiring  haul for us.

If you want to help Evan financially, be careful  when donating and clicking buttons...a friend clicked the wrong button and it went to caringbridge not Evan...oops! So, click the button "WAYS TO HELP" located above "Evan's Story" then go to "Support Links" and click on "GOFUNDME" be careful not to click the "DONATION TO CARINBRIDGE " below, unless you want to donate to The Caringbridge site its self and not to Evan. ( which is great too)! 

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