“Oh, That’s Good”

We had our meeting with the Radiation Oncologist today. Learned a lot about the treatment and next steps but we have a long way to go. My test results hadn’t arrived to him yet so I relayed to him that the referring ENT doctor told me I have Lymphoma but not sure if it was Hodgkin or Non-Hodgkin yet. Before I could even finish he said, “Oh, that’s good.”

When they treat Lymphoma they act as if you have another tumor in your body (they will do more tests on me) so treatment starts with chemotherapy and then they follow it with radiation direct to the tumor. I’m going to be waiting a few days for a referral to the Medical Oncologist (they do the chemotherapy). From a rough timeline perspective, the treatment sounds like 2-3 months of chemotherapy and then another 4-6 weeks of radiation. It appears to be pretty brutal with some really unpleasant side effects, the most permanent is reduced saliva in the mouth. But, after today, this cancer feels curable. The process is not going to be fun and we are going to need it all to go well. But this is doable.

On a very positive note, the Radiation Oncologist specializes in radiation treatment above the shoulders and he estimates that he has seen abut 4,000 patients. This guy knows what he is doing and I felt like I was in good hands.