Classical Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, Nodular Sclerosis Subtype. To be treated with ABVD chemotherapy regimen, starting a few weeks.
Turns out what I thought was severe eczema was actually a symptom of the cancer. In a way that’s kind of a good thing, since the eczema was getting really bad and wasn’t responsive to many treatments. Still, would have preferred kidney failure instead.
Received a major blow to the gut this week, the second worst so far, when I learned that the potential treatment my doctors were discussing – monoclonal antibody treatment, in lieu of any chemo or radiation – is no longer a possibility. Turns out they were anticipating the diagnosis to be NON-Hodgkins, and for some reason we weren’t on the same page on that. (Could’ve sworn I read something about MAB being used for classic Hodgkin’s but I can’t find the article…)
Another major blow to the gut, this one the worst so far, is that a certain family member who’s been driving me around town to appointments suddenly broke the silence with the extended family (which I explicitly told him NOT to do until the official diagnosis was learned), telling them a sanitized, mostly fictional version of everything and painting a much rosier picture than what this turned out to be. His email (which I had to get a copy from someone else, he neglected to send me one) basically said, “Yes, David has lymphoma but he’ll be fine, there’s this fancy new treatment which is just a pill like the pill I take for my own leukemia…” with the rest basically talking about himself and how wonderful he is. Don’t know yet how much the ext.family bought that shit except at least one of them sent me a panicked email asking me what was going on, and I’m in the way of knowning that another (one of my estranged brothers, actually) was desperately seeking information about my situation but has been told that if he wants to know more, he should contact me directly. He has yet to contact me directly.
So now the Ongoing Family Drama is back again in full swing, after many years of fighting to keep it as far away from me as possible. Don’t know how it’s gonna play out but I’m sure to be blamed for just about everything, if past events are any indication. Really bad timing for this, too. Really, really bad.
Guess that’s it. I’m not in the habit of seeking sympathy from strangers on the Internet, not my style. But maybe I could use a little extra sympathy from random strangers just to help deal with the burdens and bullshit the ext.family is trying to pile on me right now.
