On Sunday, Feb 4th, I shared a chocolate cake with my family. We celebrated two years since my life-saving transplant. I find it hard to believe that, given all the treatment and relapses I went through over the past six years, I have come out the other side with a pretty good bill of health. I say that guardedly, because there is still one more hurdle to overcome - more on that in a bit.
I have gone from strength to strength over the past year. It has now come to the point that I am almost back up to full swing and have no transplant-related issues to worry about. I am back at work full time (and have been since this time last year) and the only thing that hits me occasionally is fatigue - usually after an intense day at work or a long week in the office. I sometimes feel at 4pm like I used to at midnight - tired, worn out and ready for bed. Maybe that's just old age kicking in!
So, life is good. However, my old friend the "mixed chimerism" has come to bite me. I wondered about this before - how can my old, potentially cancerous, lymphocytes (13%) live beside my new, healthy, lymphocytes (87%) without causing problems. Well, as it turns out, they can't! Back in August, I noticed three new lumps - in my upper arm, below my right eye and above my right eye. I can even remember the day I first noticed them - Tuesday August 1st. I'm pretty sure they were not there the day before. The lump on my arm was big enough to alarm me, so I raised it with the docs. Fast forward through a CT scan, ultrasound, biopsy and PET Scan - the lump is lymphoma. The good news is that nothing else showed up in my scans - it's just that lump (and probably the smaller lumps near my eye) that are cancerous.
I agreed today with the doctors that I will have radiotherapy on the lump on my arm. This will serve two purposes - one is to zap and get rid of that lump; the second is to prompt an immune system response that will tackle any other old lymphocytes that are lurking elsewhere in my body (such as my eye).
There you have it - back to the treatment table for me - but I am not at all concerned. I have no doubt I'll get through this too - although I am curious about the treatment as I haven't had radiotherapy before. I will also get a new permanent reminder of this - a small tattoo (just a dot) that is used to target the beam. There may be a chance of fatigue, but more than likely I'll not experience any side effects.
It definitely feels like this is my old immune system trying one last trick before it disappears forever. Once it is zapped, surely that'll be it. I'll have to figure out other creative ways of getting out of the household chores.......
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