And now we have Larry…

I posted this to a playgroup that I go to with Max.

Well in September I decided to go and seek to have another child. We did IVF to get Max. We have 5 frozen embryos. In the process of preparing for this I needed to be monitored for a cycle. For this they do ultrasounds of me every so often during my cycle. During the first ultrasound the ultrasound tech (who has been doing my scans since I started going there in 2005) noticed something unusal in my scan. She thought it was bowel and just made a note of it in my chart. 10 days later I came back and it was still there so she called in my doctor, who was a bit alarmed and referred me to a gyno oncologist and sent me for an MRI.

The MRI showed the mass to be my lymph nodes and the Gyno oncologist said that because of this (and he couldn’t find anything wrong in his area of expertise) he referred me to a doctor that specializes in Lymphoma.

When I saw her, she ordered me to get a CT core biopsy, and told me to prepare myself that this could be cancer. I had the biopsy the day before Thanksgiving and today I saw her again.

I have cancer. We don’t know exactly what type yet as the genetic testing is still out. However we should have the results of that back by next week. Right now she is leaning towards some sort of “small blue celled” cancer. This could be several different things but she is thinking that it is more then likely Non-Hodgekins Lymphoma.

Lymphoma is one of the most easily cured forms of cancer. So my prognosis based on what we know now is very good. However I will have to have chemo and I will become sterile from this (they hope to start chemo in about 2 weeks). However since I have 5 excellent quality embryos that are happy as can be right now, I do have hope that I will be able to have a biological child after this is all over. She said that she likes her patients to wait 2 years after treatment to get pregnant. So that puts me at 36 (roughly I just turned 33 in October). So that isn’t too bad.

For me I know that I would have NEVER caught this had I not been infertile to begin with. I feel absolutely fine (though I did have a bone marrow biopsy today so I imagine I am going to be sore soon). I am very thankful to my son because I know he is going to help me though the rough days that I know I am going to have in the months to come. After all I have wanted to be a mom (to a living child) for as long as I can remember. That is why I was a nanny for a number of years.

If you could just pray for me that would be a big help. I don’t need anything right now other then that.

I am calling the cancer Larry. I never really liked that name (sorry if you are named that) and so it was never going to be on our list for boy names. Also I figure that anything that is causing me to go through all of this better have a name!

For all of you that are medical or scientific, I do have my preliminary report which states

PRELIMINARY DIAGNOSIS
Small cell round tumor, favor lymphoma, pending outside consultation

That doesn’t mean much to me so maybe someone can shed some light on it. I do know that my oncologist will be calling me if they have a diagnosis before I see her on Friday (though I doubt if I will be “staged” before then).

I have photos of Max that I would love to share but the lidocane has worn off from my bone marrow biopsy today (part of the staging process) and I am in a bit of pain when I move around. I will try to post them this weekend.

Jennifer