The Return of Hodgkin's

Another day of bad news although I was already anticipating it so it wasn't so difficult to hear. My oncologist received the results of my lung biopsy and it turns out the node in my lung is Hodgkin's (the same kind that was found in my liver over a year ago). It was quite a surprise to her as well as myself. We thought that if it was going to be disease, it was going to be Non-Hodgkin's since the area is so close to my mediastinal mass which has always supposidely been Non-Hodgkin's. Now I'm having doubts however. I really wonder if I was mis-diagnosed from the very beginning. I guess we will never know. I am considering asking my doctor about possibly biopsing the original mediastinal mass if it's not a very invasive procedure. This was never done in the past, because they said they would have to deflate a lung and break some ribs to get to the area. If it's as simple as the lung biopsy I had done I would be willing to do the procedure to get a real answer as to what the mediastinal mass really is.

Because these results were quite unexpected, my oncologist had no treatment plan in mind. She wants to go back to the "drawing board" and see what options might be available. She's looking into chemo, clinical trials, and possibly radiation again. Because I haven't had radiation to this area of my lung, it's still a possibility. Meanwhile, I'll be having a PET/CT done in the next week to make sure there's no disease lingering about somewhere else that hasn't been showing up in the past few CT's.

I also had an echo done this afternoon since my pulse has been high and I have still been running fevers on a daily basis. The echo was normal. We're going to keep an eye on my pulse and if it doesn't improve in the next two weeks, I may have to see a cardiologist.

The timing of bad news is never good, but this time it was a little tougher, because Chris and I had been planning a trip to Japan for the first week in October. We had everything set and were going to book it tonight or tomorrow after getting the okay from my doctor, but she of course felt it wasn't a good idea at this time. I agree with her decision and I know I will have the opportunity to go to Japan again soon. For now I need to preserve my energy for fighting my ongoing battle...