I never knew that about the chemo. Hopefully that chemo is doing its job.
@BassWrangler The emphasis in bold is MINE,not BassWranglers. I highlighted it in order to help explain why I am posting this in so much detail.
The background here is I am an Agent Orange Veteran that was actually medievaced from VN during my 2nd tour with MACV-SOG due to what are today recognized as being the symptoms of Agent Orange exposure.
My symptoms were so severe that I couldn't wear web gear,a rucksack,or a parachute,so I was forced to leave Special Forces,and spend the last few months of my second enlistment in a non-airborne assignment at Ft Bragg,where none of the above were necessary. I hated it and almost everybody in it (petty little dictators,one and all,who seemed to exist to make life hard on anyone they outranked) to the point that when they offered me a promotion if I were willing to reenlist,I told them to stuff it where the sun doesn't shine. I joined the army to be a soldier,not a babysitter,and not a prison guard.
BTW,I have read that exposure to the weed killer "Round Up" creates similar,if not identical problems.
Ok,here we go.
I was given an appointment at the local hospital to have a PET Scan taken. The results indicated I have Stage 4 Lymphoma,and that it is incurable.
My cancer doc told me that with chemo and radiation treatment there was a good chance I might be able to live a reasonably comfortable life for maybe 5 years before it started "getting bad,and once it does we have these little pills we can give you that will help you deal with it".
So off I go to chemo and radiation. To be honest,I don't even remember the radiation,but the chemo flat out kicked my ass. I ended up with an attention span of MAYBE 5 minutes. I still had good recall on everything that had happened prior to chemo,but post-chemo I was practically a vegetable.
I actually used to joke it was a good thing I had a new truck because it had a GPS in it with a memory and I could always use it to get home if I forget where I live. Truth to tell,I wasn't so sure I was joking.
It has probably been a year since that happened,but I am not good with time anymore.
What I do know is that I had several PET scans with the results indicating it wasn't getting any worse,and then I went to see my cancer doc to get a report on the latest PET Scan,and she told me it showed no evidence of cancer at all.
As in NONE.
She didn't trust this and neither did I,so I was sent for another PET Scan to see what it would tell.
It also came back negative for cancer.
I am now taking a PET Scan every 3 months instead of once a month.
The way *I* understand these things is that you MUST test out as being cancer free for 5 years before they declare you are cured,which bothers me not at all as long as the PET Scan results look good every 3 months.
My memory is starting to get a LITTLE better,which is a huge relief. It has now improved to the point where I am able to start reading books again. Had to quit reading for almost a year due to an attention span so severe I would forget what I had read on Page 1 before I could finish Page 2. This is HUGE in my opinion. It means I MIGHT be able to get back most of what I lost after some time passes. I sure hope so!
Any of you who think my posts indicate I am not all THAT scatter brained need to stop and I consider I have "spell check". Without that most of them would be unreadable.
The main point most of you who read this need to take note of is NOT how bad things were for me over the last 1+ years,but the FACT that I am getting better after being diagnosed with a form of "incurable cancer".
Soooo,those of you who are now suffering from some form of cancer,take hope. If a beat up geezer like me can seem to recover,and I am DEFINITELY better than I was,if not "recovered",from what has been diagnosed as "incurable Stage 4 cancer",there IS hope for all of you.
PLEASE take that to your heart and do NOT give up!
NEVER GIVE UP ON HOPE!
NEVER!
