This post is going to be depressing and full of foul language.

Yesterday was an avalanche of bad news, unattractive options, and a caution to remember the big picture.

I went to get my bone marrow test yesterday – It turned out having a needle stuck in my hip and having bone marrow drawn would be the highlight of the day.

I get to the oncology office and have the obligatory blood work, blood pressure, temperature and other vitals sign stuff completed. As Kate and I sat there, I was wondering if my doc would give me an update or whether we would just do the bone marrow draw and call me back for another follow on appointment to talk options.

I needn’t have worried – there would be no shortage of update.

So this is what he/they told me.

I have a Burkitt’s or Burkitt’s-type lymphoma, which will require a highly aggressive course of treatment to cure.

This highly aggressive course involves/is a chemo treatment called R Hyper CVAD. It will require me to go to the hospital 8 times, for a five-day stay every 21 days. That’s the good news. Actually, the good news is I will probably be cured

My first stay begins Tuesday 17 May 11. I have to have a chemo port installed and I also have to get a port installed in my skull so they can apply a special chemo elixir to my brain.

I have tried to come up with the right phrase to describe it all and F@CK -- in all its permutations -- is the only adequate word that encapsulates the irony, frustration, and disbelief of it all. As I write this I am muttering F@CK to myself. 

Anyway, I had every belief that I’d go to my appointment and the doc would say, “Good news, the PET scan indicates there are no other traces of cancer.” That’s not what happened.

Instead I was told that there was a little left in my abdomen, maybe some in my sinuses, and we’d have to check the bone marrow to see where we were on the continuum of stages. Right now I am somewhere between stage II and IV.

The good news for medical prognostication is that my three performance data (probable success criteria) are excellent:

            I am only 53

            I am in excellent physical shape (cancer not withstanding)

            My good cholesterol is apparently perfect (go figure)

So anyway, I’m off to the hospital Tuesday and this first stay will be 8 to 10 days because of the port installations. Jeepers!

So I guess we’ll see.

Peace, 

Bill

This is a picture of Kate and I dancing. It has nothing to do with the post. I just love dancing with her.