James Carrington

Everything has been going well for the past two weeks.  Today I had my second treatment of chemo. One of the major concerns of chemo has been that it effects the white blood cells.  Miraculously today we found out that my white blood cell count is normal at 5.  This is fantastic as it means I still have an immune defense, at least for now.  The chemo went great.  They use the drugs ABVD which is a combination of four chemo drugs they use. During the pre-chemo treatment I had a little reaction, which was fun, but it only lasted a couple minutes.  It felt like a little nausea mixed with coughing and a shortness of breath. It isn't anything to be concerned about. I really appreciated everyone's support a couple weeks ago when I gave a talk at church.  It was great to see so many familiar faces and to feel the support. Even though there wasn't much or any time to talk with everyone I could definitely feel the love.  I am still open to visitors and it ...

Yesterday I had a bone marrow biopsy and a port-a-cath put in.  There was no cancer in the bone marrow which is great.  They also got the results back from the PET scan and it was determined to be stage 3.  This means that the enlarged lymph nodes are both above and below the diaphragm.  They also inserted a  port-a-cath which is basically like a permanent IV near the heart.  This allows the medications to go into a larger artery. Today I got my first full treatment of Chemo.  They give a treatment known as ABVD.  Because it is stage 3, the chemo will be every other week for a period of 24 weeks.  As of now I have not recognized any side effects.  They are most concerned of the possibility of infection while having Chemo.  They don't want me to be around large crowds.  As of yet I am still feeling wonderful and the side effect should start taking effect sat or sun according to what the nurse said.

Yesterday I went in for a pulmonary function test which measures the air volume in your longs.  For my height and weight I was 73% of where the optimal level would be.  It's purpose is to be able to measure if there is any lung damage during the chemo.  The low lung volume was not caused by asthma.  Today they did a full body PET scan to measure the activity of the cancer cells and how many, where, and the size of the enlarged lymph nodes.  The results for this test we will get on Thursday.

It has been an adventure this last week and a half with a lot of new information.  Last week I was diagnosed with Nodular Sclerosis Hodgkin's disease which is the most common type of Lymphoma (cancer).  It is very treatable with Chemo over an extended period of time, probably 6 months.  The treatment is given every other week.  They are working on determining the stage of the cancer through a full body PET scan which will happen tomorrow, and a bone marrow biopsy.  The purpose of these scans and biopsy is the see how many and how large the lymph nodes are in the body.  The bone marrow biopsy will determine if the cancer is also in the bone marrow. Because of the extended treatment I was released from serving a full time mission in the Florida Jacksonville Mission.  Most updates of what is going on regarding the cancer will come through this blog page.  There will be a very positive outcome in the end.  No more cancer!