Appointment with the Haematologist

I met with Dr D'Souza this morning and we went through the various possible outcomes of my treatment.
We talked for over forty five minutes, it looked like I was his only patient for the morning due to the mix up with rescheduling of patients appointments.

He commented on how well I looked, three times in fact!
I have a CT scan logged into the system, this should happen within the next two weeks.
From there based on the scan results I will either have a PET scan if there are any signs of further involvement or if the scan is clear I'll have follow-up scans every six months or so from here out.

If I still have areas of involvement and they are outside of the area previously treated with radiation, It is possible that I could have further radiation treatment. If I have areas within the previously treated field then it is unlikely that any treatment could be given that would be effective.
If I relapse after a period of 6 or more months then an allogeneic stem cell transplant might be looked at. In an allogeneic transplant there is an effect known as "graft vs tumour' in which the new immune system attacks the lymphoma and keeps it at bay. This is only an option on slow growing tumours as it can take three or more months for the effect to kick in.

All of the above is really quite academic because I have no intention of relapsing and I'm positive the CT scan will be clear!

The Doctor also mentioned that my chances were greatly improved over what he first expected due to the good response I had to the salvage (IVE) chemo earlier in the year which wiped out all but one small tumour, and that should have melted away with the following high dose chemo.

Still have a niggling cough, will be a _lot_ happier once it goes.

Who me worry? Naaa

My breathing had gotten worse, the cough more frequent. I've been absolutely terrified at times and then I've convinced myself that it's not the same cough as before and I calm down. Several times while talking to people I have started to cough and I go into sudden panic (not something I'm usually renowned for doing I must add) I can't focus on anything and their words just become a background noise. I've had to sit down and pull myself together.

The fear is that if the Hodgkins has returned so quickly after high dose chemo and stem cell transplant then nothing will get rid of it. The prognosis would be extremely bad.

..But then while sitting at my desk yesterday, I heard Kurt coughing away in the workshop. I called him into my office and asked him what the story was with the coughing? . He replied that he had no idea, it had just come on over the weekend and he would be fine for hours then suddenly feel like he had breathed in something and would start to cough for a few minutes then it would stop. ...My symptoms exactly!
I could have almost hugged him. !! There's obviously something going around.
I'm a lot more relaxed now, as you can imagine.

I sent an email to Dr D'Souza earlier in the week asking him for an appointment to replace the one that has been postponed before Easter as I had heard nothing from the hospital with regards to a new time.
He replied with the following..

"Hi Ron,

You were supposed to have been booked on to an extra clinic to see me on a Wednesday morning. I've only just discovered that these clinics weren't set up as I had requested. I was expecting to be doing a full clinic on Wednesday morning. How does 9am sound?

Alwyn"

So as you can see it really does pay to be pro-active when it comes to these things. None of the other patients had bothered to enquire and so his clinics would have been empty with everyone wondering what happened..
Myself on the other hand have managed to score the first appointment at 9am tomorrow :)

I'll ask him if he can schedule either a CT or a PET as soon as possible so I can finally relax and get on with life.

It looks like Sarah and I have found a house to rent. It's a large modern three bedroom house in Avalon. It's got a big double garage with internal access, so plenty of room for cars and stuff. It's wired for TelstraClear cable so there's no issues with phone numbers, TV and internet (all very important stuff!)
Hopefully we move in next weekend (early may) just got to sign the forms etc. We have now sold all of our properties in preparation for building the new house. So as of May 8th we are officially homeless! ;)

I'll post tomorrow if the doctor has anything interesting to say...

What do you write for a title when you can't think of one?

I'm still paranoid.. had the odd cough over the last week, and a bit of asthma.
What it means I have no idea. I totally freak out each time and then convince myself it's normal for me to be asthmatic on occasions. I still have no B symptoms so I should just ignore the fears. (However if I had a consistent dry cough that would be a B symptom).
Maybe once I've seen the haematologist and had a scan done I'll be able to relax.

Sarah and I are house hunting at the moment. We need to find a place to rent until our new house is built. We need a place with plenty of garaging for my two race cars and all the other stuff we have in storage. However everything that meets our minimum requirements for space, garaging and location is almost too big. Most being four bedroom houses that you could get lost in. Living in this tiny one bedroom flat for the last 18 months has turned us into cave dwellers. (although Sarah assures me she can fill any space with the "crap" we have collected over the years)

Motorsport wise I have two big events coming up. Next weekend Murray and I are travelling to Napier to enter a two day double hillclimb event. One of which (Seafield rd) I hold the record for and the other I have not done before. Then at the end of May Sarah, Murray and I will travel to Ohingaiti near Hunterville to compete in the "King of the Mountain" hillclimb weekend. Also a double event with hillclimbs at two locations. That one I'm really looking forward to as it should have some of the best drivers in the country to compete against.

I'll post next weekends results when I return on Monday.

Who me? Paranoid?

I can't believe how paranoid I have become!
Friday night we went to a cocktail party at Murray's new flat. The temperature outside was quite chilly and I chose to sit under the heat pump above the couch to keep warm. I quickly started to cough and it wouldn't stop.

Once I moved away I stopped coughing but I felt quite asthmatic. This persisted right through Saturday and I coughed several times while talking during the day.
It was just like what had occurred after I returned from Germany. My cough returned and I became very asthmatic. Back then It had heralded the return of my cancer.

All day Saturday my brain was in a complete spin. If this was indeed a relapse after such a short period of time, I was pretty much doomed. I re-read my blog and realised that last time I had suffered from night sweats as well. I have had none. phew!
I avoided milk and milk products for the rest of the weekend and my asthma disappeared completely and I've not had so much as a tickle in my throat since.

It just goes to show how you are never rid of the fear that comes with cancer. I wonder how many years it will take before I start to relax?
Everyone coughs once in a while after-all. .

Hospital Appointment Postponed.

Dr D'Souza has taken the day off, probably wanted to extend the long weekend ... I got a phone call from the hospital this afternoon telling me they would be rescheduling...
So till then, I shall just have to wait.