ebmonkey2
Regular
Joined: 16 May 2008
Posts: 10
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 Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 2:52 pm Post subject: My Story- An Ongoing Tale of My Fathers Battle with NHL |
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Hi everyone. My name is Elijah and I'm here to post the story of my father's battle with NHL. It has been said that one day things can be going great in your life and the next day your entire life may be turned upside down. Well thats what happened to me.
For the greater part of my spring vacation from several weeks ago, my dad had been feeling ill. His stomach was hard and bulging, and throughout the weak he vomited, complained of discomfort, among other things I don't want to get into. One night, my father, mother, and I sat in their bed using my school laptop to research possible illnesses. We searched gastroentinitis, stomach flu, various infections, food posioning and more. And while some of the things we looked at had some of my fathers symptoms, nothing explained his enormous and turgid stomach, nothing really completely fit. Anyway, my mom, father, and I felt it was time for my father to see a doctor. He went on the following morning, the last weekend of my vacation from school. While he didn't see his regular physician, a doctor in the practice informed him he had an acute distended abdomen and that he needed to go the emergency room immediately. After hours in the emergency room, due to waits, test results, and more, etc., it appeared my dad's distended abdomen was actually a tumor. That was on Friday, March 28th. After 11 hours in the emergency room, my father was admitted, family members had been informed, and my mother and I went home only to have a sleepness night.
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Its now May 18th and here's what has happened. Initially my father was extremely sick. Evenutally he was moved to Ireland Cancer Center and assigned doctors on the transplant team, and while he didn't need a transplant during April of course, he was assigned to the transplant team doctors because of the severity of his case. He'd undergone several biopsies both of his lymph nodes, and of his bone marrow, which was thankfully ok. So many things happened, but it was only about one week after his stay in the emergency room hospital that he was moved.
He had gone from 180 lbs. upon his entry to the hospital to more then 210 lbs, not to mention the fact that he looked pregnant. A lot of the tumor was fluid, but we knew he was sick because despite the highly aggressive nature of Burkitt's, his tumor was growing fast. The doctors one day attempted fluid removal to help aid the lasix and other diuretics he was taking to remove fluid. They found blood and a ton of fluid buildup. In addition, we learned he had had an pneumonia for some time, and had to go on antibiotics while at Ireland. For around three weeks he remained in a very sick state before finally things were under control, he had undergone his first round of chemo, and he could go home. At this point, and still today the plan is to have him undergo 6-9 21 day cycles of chemotherapy. While he undergoes treatment for one week out of every 21 days, he now spends the rest of the time at home, going every day or every other day to the hospital for appointments, transfusions, and more, but its so nice to have him home after having seen him work 75 hours a week for the past 11 years of my life (in addition he lost his job 2 weeks into this, his really mean and heartless bosses replaced him, the breadwinner after 2 weeks, and he had been the manager, and head of daily operations for more then a decade). Today he is at home and doing ok, he has undergone his second round of treatment, and while he still sees the transplant team, he is taken care of by the regular oncology team, hes extremely positive. While he often finds he needs to spend 7 hours at the hospital for blood transfusions because his counts are low, or because hes had a bad day of side affects from chemo, he's amazing, and is doing pretty well. The doctors say after the 6-9 cycles of chemo, he has a couple of months off and then needs to spend 4-6 weeks as a hospital inpatient for a stem cell transplant to hopefully cure him of this.
So that is the story for right now,
Elijah
14 Year old son of Gary,
NHL Patient
So anyway, my dad was the healthiest person in my family. He takes no medications, he exercises, and he does everything right. This turned my life upside down. |
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ebmonkey2
Regular
Joined: 16 May 2008
Posts: 10
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| Posted: Tue May 20, 2008 11:31 am Post subject: Re: My Story- An Ongoing Tale of My Fathers Battle with NHL |
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Thank you so much for your kind words,
my dad is definetely a fighter and I have confidence in him. I do try and talk about my feelings, but I'll make sure to let my mom know how I feel. I will certainly make sure to keep this thread updates with his progress.
We are coming up on another really suckish part of his cycle- On thursday he has to go back to the hospital, which is always the single worst time for my mother and I, especially the day before. Even though I'm usually at home, on the tennis courts, or in the office on my latest computer game (computer games are my release, they take my focus away from cancer, and allow me to have fun when I play them) there is such an intense lonliness when he's away, I hate it.
Once again, I'll be sure to keep updating.
_________________
Dad Has Burkitt's Lymphoma
Age 52
Diagnosed March 28th, 2008 |
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Don't let Dad lose his ability to laugh, even though he may feel very down. Thats where you can help the most.
