Fourth Round Is Finished.

(View of the sky from my hospital room window).

Finally got out of the hospital around noon today. This cycle of chemo was a unit of Rituxan, then 4 units of Ara-C, each taking 3 hours, with 12 hours in between units. So they didn't finish the last unit until early this morning from 4 to 7 AM. I tolerated it well, but have a new side effect I hadn't expected. My feet get cold and achy. I didn't connect it to the chemo, but looked on-line just now, and see that it is sometimes a side effect. So weird.

The great news is that my PET and CT scans look, in my doctor's words, "...really, really good, actually." :o) He showed them to me yesterday--the ones taken in April, and the ones taken this month, side by side. I could see how the lymph nodes have shrunk back to normal. My doctor said that looking at the scans he couldn't see any cancer. But I will still have to go through the whole chemotherapy regimen in order to be as sure as possible that all of the renegade cells are killed before going on to the stem cell transplant.

Just to recap, after the sixth round of chemo, they will harvest my hopefully healthy bone marrow (stem cells), then I'll be in the hospital for 6 days while they give me more very strong chemo treatments. Then right away they will give me back my healthy stem cells, which we hope will start producing strong, healthy cells right away and I'll be cured.

I spoke with one of the transplant team doctors yesterday, though, and he was not quite as upbeat and confident about a cure as my doctor. He said they can't call it a cure because mantle cell lymphoma is notorious for coming back. As I understand it, sometimes the cancerous mantle cells are so slow growing that they stay hidden and are hard to kill. So a few years down the road, they may start to grow quickly and I'll be right back where I started.

But that is the reason they are giving me the very strong 6 day chemo treatments just before the transplant--to go deep and kill as much as they can (without killing me). So I am holding onto my faith and praying that it is God's will that this be cured.

I'm sure the reason I felt so good last week is because the cancer cells are mostly gone, so my body was returning to normal. It makes it hard to go back for more chemo, knowing that it will make me sick again, but I'll continue my treatments hoping for a complete cure. I don't want it to come back!

Ron and I stopped at Mom's on the way home from the hospital, then came on home where I got to see our visiting grandchildren and get big hugs from all of them. They had fun swimming in the pool, despite the cloudy weather we're having from Hurricane Alex. They may not get a chance to swim again if we get the expected rain from the outer bands.

Sister and Katy were happy to see me. I played frisbee with them for awhile, and they couldn't get enough!

I'm happy to be home, grateful that I feel as well as I do, and so very thankful for all of your prayers and support!