Hello to all,
I thought my first post should circle back to the beginning...4 years ago at the time of my first diagnosis of Hodgkin's Lymphoma...
My “story” begins back in 2004 when I was about 2-3 months pregnant (yeah!) I started to have horrible back pains that intensified to back seizures that lasted through most of the rest of my pregnancy and occurred multiple times per day; it made for a very hard pregnancy. From start to finish I was told that “all women have back pain” during pregnancy…I was referred to a chiropractor and basically spent much of those 9 months in pain and frightened/sad as no doctor really took me or my husband seriously when we described the episodes (guess they thought I was a pregnant drama queen!).
Well, after the birth of our amazing son, the lower back pain reduced majorly in episodes but did not go away completely – it was also “discovered” during my delivery hospital stay that I was extremely anemic. I stayed in this mode (with supplementary iron pills) through the first four months of my Hayden’s life (happy but very tired with sporadic back pain – attributing all of it to being a new nursing mom with an almost 11 lb newborn @ birth!) until I found the lump on my neck in January 05.
After a couple of biopsies, the doctor called me one day in late February while I was home only with my baby and told me over the phone(!) – “the results are back and not that we thought any different (Ummm, I did! Or at least was hoping!) You have cancer…. So, I was officially diagnosed and staged as Hodgkin's 4-a. Those “pregnancy” back pains I was having were tumours growing on and into my pelvic bones. They were being pushed onto the bone by my heavy baby and grew into it creating many, many fractures (the “seizures”) through my pelvic bone and touching off all sorts of nerve endings! Of mild relief was, that though there were many of them (my neck, chest, abdomen, back, pelvic, with liver involvement), – no post-chemo radiation was required.
My chemo combo was ABVD and it worked well...I began chemo in April 05 that lasted to Sept 05 (11 rounds) and my family was amazing with their love and support through it all…I actually missed my final round as I had bleo toxicity and landed in the hospital to treat my lungs with steroids for a few days. At discharge, I was prescribed further steroids to be weaned off and after a few months of recovery time to regain much lost energy and my immune system, I went back to work in Feb. 06. All was well - I was in remission. And it lasted for 3 years.
Flash forward to August 2008 and doubts moved in ...But, that is for my next post.
Thanks to anyone reading this and checking in with me.
Much love and take care.
I thought my first post should circle back to the beginning...4 years ago at the time of my first diagnosis of Hodgkin's Lymphoma...
My “story” begins back in 2004 when I was about 2-3 months pregnant (yeah!) I started to have horrible back pains that intensified to back seizures that lasted through most of the rest of my pregnancy and occurred multiple times per day; it made for a very hard pregnancy. From start to finish I was told that “all women have back pain” during pregnancy…I was referred to a chiropractor and basically spent much of those 9 months in pain and frightened/sad as no doctor really took me or my husband seriously when we described the episodes (guess they thought I was a pregnant drama queen!).
Well, after the birth of our amazing son, the lower back pain reduced majorly in episodes but did not go away completely – it was also “discovered” during my delivery hospital stay that I was extremely anemic. I stayed in this mode (with supplementary iron pills) through the first four months of my Hayden’s life (happy but very tired with sporadic back pain – attributing all of it to being a new nursing mom with an almost 11 lb newborn @ birth!) until I found the lump on my neck in January 05.
After a couple of biopsies, the doctor called me one day in late February while I was home only with my baby and told me over the phone(!) – “the results are back and not that we thought any different (Ummm, I did! Or at least was hoping!) You have cancer…. So, I was officially diagnosed and staged as Hodgkin's 4-a. Those “pregnancy” back pains I was having were tumours growing on and into my pelvic bones. They were being pushed onto the bone by my heavy baby and grew into it creating many, many fractures (the “seizures”) through my pelvic bone and touching off all sorts of nerve endings! Of mild relief was, that though there were many of them (my neck, chest, abdomen, back, pelvic, with liver involvement), – no post-chemo radiation was required.
My chemo combo was ABVD and it worked well...I began chemo in April 05 that lasted to Sept 05 (11 rounds) and my family was amazing with their love and support through it all…I actually missed my final round as I had bleo toxicity and landed in the hospital to treat my lungs with steroids for a few days. At discharge, I was prescribed further steroids to be weaned off and after a few months of recovery time to regain much lost energy and my immune system, I went back to work in Feb. 06. All was well - I was in remission. And it lasted for 3 years.
Flash forward to August 2008 and doubts moved in ...But, that is for my next post.
Thanks to anyone reading this and checking in with me.
Much love and take care.
