First off, thank you for your prayers, love and support. As many of you know Al is in for a rocky road ahead! He has been diagnosed with a very rare form of Lymphoma called DHL.
How they found this was Al went into urgent care approximately 7 weeks ago with extreme abdominal pain. After a CT they found out he had diverticulitis, an infection in a pocket in his colon. (he took a round of antibiotics for this and it is gone) At that time they also noticed he had alarming large lymph nodes in his abdomen. He since then has had a pet scan and biopsies on the 2 lymph nodes that showed "hot" in the pet scan. Which led us to the initial diagnosis of NHL.
On November 26th we received a call from his oncologist with new findings from the tests that have been previously done. His new diagnosis is: Double-hit lymphoma (DHL) is an aggressive type of B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) characterized by rearrangements (parts of genes switch places within chromosomes) in two particular genes. One rearrangement involves the MYC gene, and the other involves the BCL2 gene or, less commonly, the BCL6 gene. Due to these new findings the treatment plan has changed from what we may have told some of you already.
- Nov 27th he had bone marrow biopsies at Lakeview Hospital in Stillwater, MN. - Nov 29th Friday he had another biopsy on the lymph node on his left jaw line. (this has been swelled up since July but was ruled out at that time of being something to be worried about). - Dec 3rd Tuesday he will be at Regions in St Paul for echo cardiogram at 11am and then outpatient procedure at 12:30 pm to install the port in his chest. - Dec 4th Wednesday we will meet with his oncologist Dr Kumar for further results, staging and to talk more about the game plan. - Dec 5th Al will be admitted into Regions hospital to start treatment. He will be inpatient for 4 days, if he is well enough he will come home on the 5th day. To our current knowledge this will be the pattern every 3 weeks for 6 cycles.
At this time he is still not showing any signs or symptoms of the cancer. We are praying that this is good news. We are welcoming everyone's well wishes and prayers.
Howdy everyone. Barb and I meet with the doctor today and she has told us that post-PET scan was clear and she was very happy. She has placed orders for blood work and a follow-up with her in 3 months. She also has put in an order for me to get the port removed .. :-). I am grateful to my Lord who is always with me, I am blessed. I also want to thank ALL of you and my family for the continued thoughts and prayers, it meant so much! I don't plan on making any more entries because no news is Good News! Love you all!
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