Diagnosis (June 25th)

After several weeks of tests and awaiting results we finally had our final diagnosis appointment with my Oncologist on June 25th. The Verdict: Mantle Cell Lymphoma (aka MCL). I'm not going to spend a lot of time explaining what MCL is. In summary, it's a very rare form of NHL and the avg. age of people who get this sub-type is 65 years old (only 6% of all NHL cases are MCL). If interested in learning more I recommend this site: https://lymphoma.org/ The other thing I'd caution you about if you're 'Googling" is there is a lot of old information out there especially with the developments in both NHL and MCL w/in the past couple of years.

So now what??? There is no standard/universal treatment for this disease across the world (or even the U.S. for that matter). Many are very similar across the top cancer institutions but they all have their own twists. My treatment will be a 3-phased treatment:

1. Phase I: Chemo/Immuno Therapy for 6 treatments. Each month I will go in for treatment for 3 days in a row. (July - December)
2. Phase II: Stem Cell Implant. My own, healthy stem cells will be harvested, I will get a high dose of chemo and then the healthy stem cells will be re-planted in my body. For this procedure I will have to be in the hospital, in isolation for approximately 2-4 weeks - THIS WILL BE HARD!. (6-8 weeks after Phase 1 ends)
3. Phase III: Maintenance. At this point the hope is that I'm in Complete Remission. I would take an oral pill for 2 years following in case a cancer cell would try to make it's way back. (Immediately after recovery from Phase II)

Of course all this mentioned above assumes that things are working to plan and that a different path is not needed. The good news is I'm young and healthy so all possible treatments are on the table for me...I guess that's the perk of being half the age of people who get this disease!