full speed ahead... sorta...

I had my bone marrow biopsy a week ago Monday... and I was nervous, really nervous by the time it came around. However, now I can tell anyone who faces the procedure in the future, it's just not that bad... it's not exactly fun, but it isn't anywhere as bad as your imagination makes it.

Got the results this Monday evening, they were clean... thank goodness. If it had been positive it would have made my Hodgkin's stage 4 rather than the stage 2A it is. Now we can stick to the plan my oncologist had mapped out for 4-6 months of chemotherapy with (hopefully) no radiation, she believes that combining the chemo and radiation carries a possibility for long-term complications that we don't need to risk at the moment. Works for me.

So now I wait again, for my oncologist's nurse, Laura, to call with the schedule after the doctor writes out the orders for my chemo. I've also decided to opt to have the port implanted to use for my chemo and hopefully any other tests and those blood draws I seem to constantly require. I've come to dread the IV more than the procedures so I think the port is the option for me, they tell me it's a simple procedure, easier than my surgical biopsy, so I'm going to go for it. As soon as they call I'll see about scheduling with the surgeon.

So it looks like we'll be getting started soon... suddenly it's more real than it has been so far. Until now in spite of all the tests and talk it's been sort of abstract and now it's turning concrete right before my eyes... I feel a little scared, but I know we're doing what we need to do to get past this and back to real life. Whatever our New Normal Life will be...

We (myself, robert and my brother) are going to get our portrait taken on Friday morning, my mom has been asking my brother and I to get our pictures taken for ages, and I'd like some pictures with my fiance too, before my hair falls out... I still wonder some days what it will come back like, superficial perhaps but I have gotten to a place in my life where I like my hair and now it's going to fall out, well break off the doctor says. Ah well.