My Week In Between...

This is my week in between treatments.
Next Tuesday is it.
Finally.
Last one!
Number 12 of 12.

Also known as: "6B". (each cycle is two treatments, my first treatment was 1A, followed by my second treatment two weeks later 1B etc, etc, so on and so forth 2A, 2B, 3A, 3B yada yada....)

Dr L has recommended I wait about a month (approx Aug 3rd) before removing the Port and I told him I expected to return to work by the end of July. He was okay with that.

He also advised he will order a CT scan after my last treatment. It turns out my scan which found me "CLEAN" was not a CT scan but a PET scan-which I may not have blogged about. They are different machines I guess, basically the same test to me. The issue with me and why I will have to be scanned by them both over the next 5 years is that (as determined when I was diagnosed) Kidney cancer doesn't show up in a PET scan. So I need to have both a CT and a PET scan each time I am scanned.

(If I have my terms correct CT vs PET below)
CT: Computerized Tomography
PET: Positron Emission Tomography.

The PET scan is more like an MRI than the CT scan is.

I got a glimpse of the print out of my last scan in my chart while talking to Dr L last week. If I can get my original PET scan films back as well as a copy of these I will post them here. (I never should have returned them to Chilton). I remember the "yellow" shapes that looked like fire flies in my chest and neck in the original scan. This past one had nothing like it, it was just pictures of my guts.

So this week I will feel like a hundred bucks and then go back for my last shot of ABVD and feel like crap again for 4-5 days (FOR THE LAST TIME) and then once the lousy taste issues subside and I can actually go thru a week where I am not getting stuck for a blood draw and I can sit at home on a "chemo" Tuesday and not have to be attached to an IV stuck in my chest for two hours...I will feel like a FREE MAN!

Even though I was told over a month ago that the Cancer was gone (5/18/07) I still don't feel like I am free of it because of the chemo left to deal with. But that is finally about to change.

What a long 6 months it has been. Never thought we were going to get thru it. To think, Back on Jan 2nd I had my kidney removed. Seems like yesterday and a lifetime ago at the same time.

As routine as my treatment for Hodgkin's became (based on the frequency) it still feels surreal and out of this world to think I had Kidney cancer and didn't know it, until the CT scan to look into the swollen lymph nodes in my neck found that rather large tumor sitting there. And then to think how anxious my Dr's were about the Kidney Cancer to boot.

So I have a permanent spot on my back where the Kidney biopsy was done. A permanent spot on my back/hip area where the bone marrow was done. (Don't wish that torture on my worst enemy), not to mention the five scars on my torso where my Kidney was removed (thru my abdomen with an assist Laparoscpically via smaller incisions) and where the port-a-catheter (still is, just below my collar bone)...I can't wait to get rid of that God forsaken thing.

And while this event will finally be behind us and we can begin to move on, it won't be far enough behind us since I will be dealing with my Oncologist and CT/PET machines for the next 5 years minimum...

But I will take what I've got now over what I had before, no question.