Big Understanding

I'm not sure that I've really shared the scope of my disease with you all so far.  Actually it is just now becoming clear to me how big and serious it is.  The diagnosis I have is Stage 4 Acute Lymphoblastic Lymphoma.  Some of the literature I've read about ALL suggest that they don't really do 'staging' with this disease.  I'm not sure why that is.  But Stage 4 basically means that the cancer was present throughout my entire lymphatic system, on both sides of my diaphragm (up and down).  Stage 4 is as advanced as cancer gets.  Let me tell you a little story.

When I finally decided to go to the doctor I was fully ready.  I knew it was necessary, I knew I was sick and that I needed help and I was fully prepared to get that help, whatever it would be.  So in a way I'm glad I waited as long as I did.  I'm stubborn, I guess, and I thought before that my body would heal itself.  And I gave it as much of a chance to do so as I could, and then gave in.  That's how it played out.  I don't regret it, it was just how it needed to be for me.
So I finally go to the doctor, and I tell them I'm having trouble breathing, and I'm sick to my stomach a lot, and I have been that way and getting worse for a while (two-three months).  And the doc taps around my chest a bit and says, ok let's do a chest xray and see what we can see.
So we do a chest xray, and he's gone from the room, and I'm just sitting there waiting.  Waiting so I can get back to work and get on with my day (I have a lot to do here!).  And he comes in and he is concerned.  I can tell right away.  And one of the first things out of his mouth is the phrase Hodgkin's lymphoma.  And I'm like, what.

No really, I knew I was sick.  I knew I was losing weight and I looked bad and I was weak and I couldn't breathe, but what the fuck dude.  Cancer?!?!?

He says, let me call a radiologist and have them look, but it looks like Hodgkin's on the xray.
Radiologist confirms what he sees.  And the doc sends me home.  He says, let me call Rocky Mountain Cancer, get some feedback, and I'll call you this afternoon.

So I go to work, and go about my day, and that afternoon I get a call from the doc and he says:
You need to go to the hospital as soon as you can, like tonight even.  And you need to go check in to the emergency room and let them take care of you.  Right away.

Holy fucking shit.

So I call my Dad, and I call my boss's boss (my boss is out of town on vacation).  And I tell them what's going on, and I tell them I need to go to the hospital and that I'm going first thing in the morning.

And amazing things start happening.  My director is basically the MOST supportive person on the planet.  She says, my husband had cancer, don't worry, go get well, don't think about work, just go get well and we'll take care of everything.  Um, amazing.

And my dad, my poor dad who is part of my poor amazing loving family who are still blown away in shock by this (as I still am), comes up that night and we go to dinner and we're like, ok.  Let's see what happens.

On the way to the hospital the next morning I stop back by the clinic where I had the chest xray and the guy shows me the image, and I can see this huge glob of crap above my heart.  He shows me a normal xray and he shows me mine, and it looks pretty bad.  And his colleague there says to me, 'This guy just saved your life.'  And I'm like, really?  That's fucking crazy.  But the thing is, it's true.  This doctor, his name is Jeremy Wilson, he saved my life.  Him and a whole slew of other people at the hospital including my oncologist who is still saving my life and fighting for me every day.

There's a lot more to this tale, but that's how I ended up learning about the cancer and going to the hospital in the first place.  Talk about unexpected!

However, there are some positive take-aways so far that I also wanted to share with you.
The initial round of chemotherapy I underwent has already had profound positive effects.  The size of the mass in my chest has been vastly reduced.  I can breath normally again.  The only real suffering I'm experiencing is this on-going nausea issue, and trouble eating/keeping my weight up.  But that seems to  be standard cancer/chemotherapy stuff.  After this next round of treatments that starts on Monday they will do another CT scan with oral contrast and will get a really clear picture of where the cancer is throughout my body at that point.  As of now I am hopeful that it will disappearing fast.

However, I do have to be realistic about this.  There are some sobering things I came across yesterday.
First of all, the disease I have has about a 50% survival rate.  I know I can survive it, but that's the number.  Second, I will almost certainly lose my fertility from going through the high-dose, high-intensity chemotherapy they're giving me.  So the likelihood of me every having my own kids is very very low.  Also, while the treatments I'm going through may be effective, they also may not be.  And even if they are I may still need things like a bone marrow transplant, and other on-going types of procedures.  In short, this could drag on for a long long time.

My work has been incredibly supportive.  And my hope is that I can go back to work, even part time, sometime soon.  But I don't know for sure how this will play out.  And I could be incapacitated for a longer time that I was thinking.  I guess the point of all this is, I don't know what's going to happen.  Not now any more than I did the day I went to the doctor's office for the first time.

So I'm taking it one day at a time, one meal at a time.  One interaction at a time.  And I'm going to be as present and strong as I can be.  I'm going to maintain my goal of being healthy and happy and successful, and getting back to my life.  And I'm going to let things unfold, because honestly, what choice do we have?  We're not in control as much as we'd like to think we are.  We just aren't.

Thanks for the continued support.  Keep it coming.  This transformation needs all the love it can get.

Love
Chris