I would rather talk about potatoes, please

I went to see my doctor about lower abdominal pain and after I winced when she pressed on my upper torso she rushed me in for a CT scan and blood tests. When she called me back I was walking downtown and when she asked me where I was and whether I could talk (i.e., listen), I knew it was not good news. I found a place to sit and she told me I have an abdominal mass the size of a medium sized baked potato. Why baked, I wondered? Does that make a difference in the size or do doctors think a person can only imagine a potato she is about to eat? 

 But, seriously, she apologised four times so I knew she thought it was bad news. She thinks it might be a recurrence of lymphoma. I still don't know what the lower abdominal pain was but she guesses it's from diverticulitis so I am taking antibiotics on her recommendation. That pain has lessened, at least. I was having so much pain I couldn't sleep so now I am once again taking Trazodone to help me sleep. 

 I have to wait a week and a half to see my oncologist because she wants a PET scan to see if it is a benign mass or if it is actively growing (I think). A biopsy might follow that. The night after getting the news I felt resigned. I lay in bed and thought of all the many things around me that I own that someone would have to deal with, dispose of, etc. Now a feeling similar to the first discovery (really, that was the second) of lymphoma is setting in. It seems unreal. How sick could I be if I mostly feel pretty good? Not good enough to clean my kitchen floor (ha ha) but good enough to start a daily weight loss program through a YouTube channel. No, I don't have night sweats, one of the things they always ask me about at my annual checkup. I am eating--although I do get full more easily and don't feel much hunger. My general practioner assured me that it is very treatable, not like pancreatic cancer. She probably knows that is where my mind goes after my mother died five months after diagnosis. My cousin's husband died at 67 only six weeks after diagnosis. So short a time! 

 It is odd how I measured a potato and it gave me a hankering for potato hash browns which I made this morning. Yummy.

The actual size of the mass was: 10.9 x 8.9 x 9.1 cm

Remission, 2020

 "NED stands for 'no evidence of disease.' People in my online support group said 'Dancing with NED' when a scan showed that the lymphoma was all gone." (https://lymphomanewstoday.com/2019/04/12/slow-growing-cancer/#:~:text=NED%20stands%20for%20%E2%80%9Cno%20evidence,the%20lymphoma%20was%20all%20gone.)

So I guess I am dancing with NED. In times of Covid19,  some dancing is better than no dancing!

I asked my oncologist, a young pretty Indian-American woman, if I have increased vulnerability to contracting Covid19 (who I saw on September 22nd).  I am not sure but I think she said a little. She didn't make me worry. But she does recommend I get another CT scan next year. It will have been 4 or 5 years since the last one. There are no problems, no enlarged lymph nodes, but an occasional scan is reasonable.  I am to report an increase in night sweats, lumps, etc.

I feel bad that I don't remember the specifics! 

Prognosis is a tricky thing

If you take a quick look at non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and its prognosis, you can get pretty alarmed.

According to the American Cancer Society, the overall 5-year relative survival rate for patients with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma is 63% and the 10-year relative survival rate is 51%.

My form, called follicular lymphoma that is low grade or indolent, has better prospects. So you may have to put up with me a lot longer!

In general, the average survival rate for follicular lymphoma is 7 - 10 years, depending on other risk factors. New drug treatments, particularly monoclonal antibodies, have significantly improved survival rates. According to a recent study, 91% of patients with follicular lymphoma now survive the first 4 years after diagnosis, compared with 69% of patients treated in the past with older types of drugs.

So I have a better prognosis than most because we caught it early, it is slow-growing (I may have already had it for ten years, see blog about 2003), and there are no symptoms, no known spreading to other organs. Robert Miller and many others have lived with it for over 20 years. That's what I intend to do.

This is a good summary:
http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/non-hodgkins-lymphoma/prognosis.html

FYI:
Do you know there are 80 kinds of lymphoma? Yowee! Wikipedia: The 2008 World Health Organization "lists over 80 different forms of lymphomas in four broad groups."