Ian Dale

Today has been a difficult day....after having been given chemotherapy and then radiation therapy until three weeks ago, I was hoping for some good news. As some of you may know, I was diagnosed with anaplastic large T-cell lymphoma in January. This was especially difficult since I had been given the all clear in November after having  had surgery and radiation therapy for prostate cancer. I had my PET/CT scan on Monday of this week and got the results today. It turns out that my cancer is now in my liver and spleen after having first appeared under my arm and in my neck. My course of treatment now is to have chemo or immunotherapy for 12 weeks and then have a bone marrow transplant if a matching donor is found . I would encourage everyone to at least be an organ donor as there is an acute shortage. After this stage of treatment I then will be going into hospital for 30 days while they wipe out my immune system. I will then be allowed home but will be at home for around 100 days while my immunity rebuilds itself. Plenty of time to play guitar I guess lol. I will also have someone with me round the clock during that time in case anything happens to me.....this will be a long , hard fight but I am so very fortunate to have such supportive friends and such a loving, caring family  .......feel free to get in touch with me on Bookface (sic) or by any other means of communication except smoke signals . I will try to remain as upbeat and as cynical an old man as I have always been ............hopefully there will be some funny moments on this journey and I will be sure to share those with you . Also there will be times when I will be overwhelmed by people's caring and supportive words and actions.  Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting.