I went in to the City Hospital with my mother to meet a
very nice lady who said “I’m someone who talked to people about cancer...and we
are talking about cancer.” She explained that they’d been unsure which of 2
types of cancer it was, had it been the one they originally thought, she was
ready to tell me to write a will and that I had 3 months to live. However, she
said, it wasn’t that one and the one it was wasn’t so bad. (its a weird feeling
listening intently but just hearing words, my mum was taking notes as I knew I
wasn’t retaining any of this) In fact, it was
Diffuse Large B cell Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma which is not only
treatable but curable. The difference being that ‘treatable’ puts you in
remission where they monitor you forever as it may return. ‘Curable’ means it’s
gone completely like it had never been there. She went to get some literature
on the subject and I joked to my mum about how bad something has to be for the sweetener
to be that that it’s not as bad as 3 months to live!
We then went on to meet my Lymphoma consultant, Dr Bishton
who arranged pet/ct scan for other occurrences of lymphoma and a biopsy of my
bone marrow which would tell them more about how strong I was at producing
white blood cells and thus the strength of my immune system.
What Dr. Bishton didn't tell me then was that (according to Dr McMillan who I met later) the chemo is more effective when the rounds are closer together at the beginning and that it matters less in the later rounds.
