Do I Only Have A Brain?

Time to catch up on what I have and havn't found out since my last entry. Last week I had my 3 month body scan for comparison to the one I had in December. This should give us an idea of how it has progressed OR NOT! I also had a brain scan MRI because of some dizziness and headaches I have been having. Just to be on the safe side, (lymphoma spreading to the brain would be pretty rare). Contrary to popular opinion around here, they did find a brain and nothing else. Perfectly normal scan, and yes I said normal! Will probably hear results of the scan late next week.

It took a while for me to get the results of the bone marrow and the consultation between the surgeon and Dr. Chesson, my oncologist. Seems he was out of the country. I did manage to catch Katherine my Nurse Practitioner before she went on her well deserved break. As usual, she was very reassuring an informative.
Seems there is cancer in the bone marrow, which is totally expected in a blood cancer. Involvement was minimal, but will now define the diagnosis as Stage IV. Remember this is more about where it is than about how bad it is. As far as surgery goes, they decided against taking another biopsy at this time. This means we still won't know which of the 30 specific types of B-cell lymphoma I have for right now. That is OK, since about 26 of them would all have the same treatment anyway. The surgeon was not able to physically locate or feel any enlarged nodes, so they thought that was a good enough sign to wait until there were more obvious problems and enlargement. When they get a good size lymph node they will take it out then. According to Katherine this is good news. It could be months before there is any reason for treatment, and I feel totally comfortable with that. I have a lot of faith in them and I will continue to listen carefully to what they have to say.