Biopsy results

 Alrighty, result time.  So since there's apparently a law now that requires test results to be released to the patient in a certain amount of time (wether your doctor has gone over them with you or not) I got the first set of results in a few days.  The first to come back was the flow cytometry.  Those results made me nervous because in bold type right at the top it said basically that the results weren't conclusive on their own due to poor cell viability.  So here I am thinking, oh shit, what am I going to do if they can't confirm that it's still Hodgkin's?!  And then I gave myself a pat on the back for refusing the needle biopsy, LOL.  If there was crappy results on this one when they had a bigger sample, there's no way they would have gotten what they needed from a needle aspiration.  

About a week after those results, the pathology report came back.  Thankfully this one confirmed that it's still Hodgkin's, and it also confirmed that it's CD30 positive (which is what I would need for the clinical trial).  I finally saw my oncologist to talk about the game plan.  Since an Allogeneic transplant is off the table right now as far as I'm concerned, the plan is to go back on Nivolumab (immunotherapy).  He said that the clinical trial is not an option right now because they don't have dates for it yet.  It's looking like it won't be ready to roll until the beginning of next year at the earliest.  So I'll go back on immunotherapy as a bridge to whatever I end up doing in the future.  Hopefully I'll respond to it like I did last time and it'll put me back into remission.  I had another CT scan done a few days ago of my abdomen and pelvis for a baseline, since the last scan was just of my chest.  

It's nice to have a game plan finally.  I'm starting back up next Friday, so hopefully the infusions will start doing their thing quickly.  It's a 30 minute infusion every four weeks, and I usually tolerate it pretty well.  I'll do my best to keep everyone updated regularly.  Thanks so much for all the positive thoughts and prayers!! ❤️😃❤️

Biopsy take 2

 I am such a procrastinator!!  I know that I'm way overdue on updating this when I start getting messages asking what's going on, LOL.  So here it goes!  So this time around, I had a different anesthesiologist, which was probably a good thing.  She didn't want to do a nerve block like the last one did, so there wasn't as much prep before they took me back.  I woke up in a ridiculous amount of pain, and in retrospect I really wish she would have done the block.  But it is what it is.  When I was coherent enough to talk to my doctor, I found out that he did actually do a thoracotomy.  So between that incision and the chest tube, pain level 12, LOL.  He said that the mass was literally as hard as a rock, so he was having a hard time getting samples from it.  He decided to just cut me open and excise the whole mass to ensure that we got a diagnostic sample.  It was about 5 x 3.5cm, which is larger than I realized. 

**** Also, warning ahead of time if you're squeamish, I added a couple of pics at the end of the post, so don't keep scrolling when you get to the flower pic if you don't want to see!! 

So due to the thoracotomy, I knew I was going to be stuck in the hospital for more than one night.  I spent most of the evening/night in agony, which was awesome.  They had put me on a morphine pump with a PCA (patient controlled analgesic), so you'd think I would be a happy camper, but alas as we've already established... I have horrible luck.  Morphine doesn't really work well for me for some unknown reason, so since I was still in so much pain they decided that they were going to switch me to Dilaudid before I went up to my room (it's almost midnight at this point).  The nurse was switching out the meds and commented that I'd only used the PCA twice and asked me why I wasn't pushing it every ten minutes like I could.  I looked at her like she was nuts, and told her I'd been pushing it as much as I could.  So she switched the med, and had me push the button again.  It was at that point when she realized that the button on my PCA was malfunctioning... So yeah, that would explain why I was a hot mess.  Then another nurse commented that Dilaudid tends to work better than Morphine for that kind of procedure/pain, which made me wonder why the hell they didn't start me on that from the beginning.  Ugh.  My doctor was so pissed when he heard about all that in the morning.

Anyway, I got to my room and got all settled.  I had a roomie, which I wasn't really happy about, but at least I wasn't spending the night in recovery again.  I ended up staying for two nights, which wasn't too bad.  It was a pretty uneventful stay, which is a good thing, LOL.  Mom and dad came to visit and brought me coffee, so that definitely helped my mental state, haha. I felt so bad for the nurses though... They had six patients each, which is definitely too many.  I should have done this post sooner, because now I don't remember much else from my stay, LOL.  My criteria for discharge was based on my chest tube, and my pain meds.  I basically had to stop using my PCA to show that I would be ok pain wise without having it.  So once I was done with that and they took the tube out I was good to go.  I had to take a few days off from work to recover, and I had restrictions on a few things as far as physical activity, but I managed ok.  I appreciate all the kind words and messages during the whole ordeal!! ❤️❤️❤️