Day + 54

Physically, I have been feeling stronger every day......I walk & ride my bike regularly.....I am doing more & more yard work & other chores...which allows me to feel more productive & independant.
It is the mental side of things that I am finding the most difficult. This whole experience is never too far from my mind....& I have to make a conscious effort to control my thoughts....& not allow them to paralyze me with fear....so I can have normalcy in my day to day life.
Some days are better than others & I really appreciate those......
As Sarah informed me, this thing called "scanxiety" is very common whenever we face a new PET or CT scan.....so keeping your mind under control at these times is even more challenging!

My Friday appointment with Dr. Anderson was very helpful to me.....he really took time to listen to my questions & his answers were very thoughtful.

The first question I wanted to know was:
Does he feel that a maintenance treatment of Rituximab(Rituxan).....every two months for 1 year..... would benefit me? Does the study I am participating in show any indication one way or the other?
Dr. A feels that in my case, since I have already received 10 treatments of Rituxan over the past year....in conjunction with my chemotherapy treatments.....that Rituxan would probably not do anything further for me. The study is not showing one way or the other whether Rituxan is benefiting as a maintenance treatment in Large Diffuse B Cell NHL.....it will take many patients over several years to know the answer.

Rituxan is still being studied & there are still so many questions regarding its long term effects. It is still a drug & all drugs have side effects....one concern/question about Rituxan is.....what are the long term effects on the immune system? Since it is an immunotherapy drug....& works with our natural immune system.....will it cause problems in this area??

I also wanted to know his opinion on whether he recommends Radiation treatments in my case?
He feels that Radiation Therapy is a reasonable course of treatment for me to pursue.
I've been treated with 11 rounds of chemotherapy during the past year....the last 3 being as strong as you can get.....my tumour is isolated to one location......Radiation may help prevent a reoccurance of my lymphoma. There are of course risks associated with any treatment.......with radiation to the chest we have to be concerned about toxicity to the heart, lungs, thyroid & breast tissue. Radiation will increase my chance of secondary cancer in these areas & other types of damage....ie. like to the coronary arteries of the heart.
Fortunately, my tumour is located more to the right of the centre of my chest so the radiation will only touch a small portion of the right of my heart.

I will know more details tomorrow after meeting with my radiation oncologist...Dr. Wilke. He will use a CT machine to define the size of the area he will treat plus he will determine the dosage of radiation he will apply over a 4 week period. If the PET Scan shows no activity, then he will probably treat me with a lessor amount then if the PET Scan shows positive for cancer cells. The idea here, is to treat with just enough radiation to do the job & hopefully not any more.....as this will help lower the long term risks.

I will update more after tomorrow's appointment.....