No problem? - posted by Pierre

It was an interesting week last week. Laura had been experiencing some breathing problems (heaviness and discomfort when breathing deeply, as well as a couple times waking up in the middle of the night with shortness of breath). This was a concern, naturally, as it was her breathing that precipitated her diagnosis. Also, one of the chemo drugs, bleomycin, is known to cause temporary or permanent lung damage. If that is the case, they sometimes remove it from the mix.

We went to the hospital on Wednesday to get her checked out. Since her CT and gallium scans came back showing that the lymph nodes has shrunk significantly and that there was no more spread, our oncologist wanted to check for possible clots in the lungs or heart. So on Thursday she went for a different scan, and that came back as normal as well, so no clots. On Friday morning, her chemo got postponed until the following Tuesday (today) so that she could go for a pulmonary test to check out her lung capacity and such. We got word yesterday that the pulmonary test came back fine (whatever that means exactly), so the chemo could go ahead.

So, today is treatment #8, the end of round/cycle #4. She is still finding herself short of breath at times, especially when exerting herself a little. Still not sure why that is, but we will definitely be keeping an eye on it and investigating more. It is such a strange adventure and we are learning so much as we go along. I keep in touch with another lady in the US who also has been treated for gray zone lymphoma, Julia, and she has been a tremendous source of information and encouragement for us. She even put us in touch with her oncologist and we've been exchanging information. Our doctor was interested in this as well so we are passing along the contact info to him. Since it is all so new and not much data is available on treatment and results there is such a need to share as much information as possible. I guess we're making history here!