Suddenly Everybody is Jumping on the Cancer Bandwagon

With the recent announcement that Fred Thompson has cancer it marks four presidential candidates that are currently being effected by the disease. Rudy Guiliani and John McCain have both seemingly won their battles and Elizabeth Edwards is fighting a variety of cancers as is current Presidential Press Secretary Tony Snow. Now enter former senator Fred Thompson from Tennessee. The Republican has been considering a run for the White House and in preparation of that announcement he has released details of his personal fight with a lymphoma very much like Joan's version. It is being reported that the Republican was releasing this information to gauge public reaction before deciding to enter the race.

While Sen Thompson has a type called Marginal Zone Lymphoma the disease acts very much like Joan's Follicular Lymphoma. And the reason for this entry is that the similarities in those illnesses cause very similar treatment options. Sen Thompson has some nodes removed, as did Joan. Those nodes revealed a very slow growing low grade cancer, as did Joan's. The Senator waited a couple of months to see what would happen next, as Joan is doing now and when the cancer was still present he began a regimen of a drug called Rituxin. The drug has already been mentioned by Joan's doctor as a possible treatment option in the near future. The Senator was blessed with a complete remission without ever having to receive a chemotherapy session or any further treatments.

“I have had no illness from it, or even any symptoms,” Mr. Thompson said in a statement. “My life expectancy should not be affected.”

"Right now, he has no evidence of disease," said Dr. Bruce D. Cheson, head of hematology in the division of hematology/oncology at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington. Many such patients "can live a normal life span," he said.

About Thompson's consideration of a possible presidential bid, Cheson said: "I would strongly encourage him, if this is what he wants to do, to go ahead with it. His disease and eventual treatment for this disease should not impact on his ability to perform this job."

Some 22 percent of people with the disease have the type of lymphoma that typically follows a benign course, Lichtenfeld said.

Thompson appears to have that type, suggesting that "his outlook is, in fact, excellent," he said.

Thank you Fred Thompson for being forthcoming and to all the candidates touched by this disease we say thanks. There are so many examples of people who survive this disease with absolutely no long term effects on their lives. You all serve as an inspiration to those just beginning their journey.

The Results are In...

And I wish I had better or more encouraging news, but the results of the test provided us with a cloudy future with a mix of good news and bad news.

♫♪Tell me something Good (tell me, tell me, tell me)♫

Joan was singing Chaka Khan all morning and again said that one line as we waited for Dr. Stephanie Capone to come in and read the results of Joan’s recent Bone Aspiration (*ouch*) and PET scan. I wondered if this being the first time that we ever waited more than five minutes was a bad sign. Who knows but Joan, who pretty much only knows that one line from the Rufus and Chaka Khan song, exhausted even her undying enthusiasm pretty quickly. (Didn’t Stevie Wonder write those lyrics?)

When the Doctor came in Joan called out again

♫Tell me something Good♪

To which Dr. Capone answered

♪Tell me that you love me ♫♪

She understood the song reference immediately. We have the perfect doctor for Joan don’t we?

Well she told us that the Bone Marrow Aspiration had provided us with good news. There was “flow symmetry” and that there was no evidence of new lymphoma in the marrow. Cool, if there had been Joan might have had to go through that again and drilling into one’s pelvis is apparently painful...

The bad news was that Joan’s cancer is more spread out than we ever thought probable. The PET scan showed that Joan had lymphoma in three parts of her lymphatic system; she had lymphatic cells in her Mediasteinem (4), Hilum (2) and her Inguinal lymph nodes (5). Having cancerous growths in that many separate places and places that are far apart brings you up to stage 3 cancer rather than the relatively safer sounding stage 1. This was a big disappointment for Joan and me.

Exactly what Joan looks like in a bikini...

Joan has had two lymph nodes removed from her neck (1) in the diagram. Both were found to be enlarged, but no cancer was present. She had two of her Auxiliary nodes removed (3) and that is where we knew she had cancer before. It turns out that we had the only two nodes with cancer in that area targeted and removed. That area is apparently healthy (great news!) It is the other areas which are now believed to have cancerous growth in those nodes.

♪Tell me something Good (tell me, tell me, tell me) ♫

So Joan is stage three now because there are cancerous cells above and below the diaphragm and they are in three different parts of her body. But she is still low risk and as mentioned before she as an “indolent” or slow moving type of Lymphoma. Follicular Lymphoma is with you forever when you have it. There is no cure, only treatments. But many who have this type of cancer never need treatments because it does not grow. We are hoping in three months when Joan has her next scan there will be little or no progress in those affected nodes.

For now Joan has been presented with two options: Do nothing until the scans three moths from now and see how they look or begin Chemotherapy right away. We chose to wait. If there is a bright spot in the Chemo discussions today Joan will, if ever forced to undergo this destructive treatment, only have a relatively mild technique compared to many that must suffer through this cancer management method. Even better news is that it is entirely possible that the cancer will remiss on its own. As unlikely as that sounds it happens a full 20% of the time in Follicular patients, and we believe that it has already happened to Joan in the past. If Joan does have to have Chemo it will probably start in the summer and it will probably cause her hair to thin.

♫Tell me that you like it, yeah♪

Joan says that her hair could use some thinning. Yeah, I do most of the vacuuming around here. I am not so sure of that but that is just Joan being Joan…

So for now we wait. I hope that you will all continue to pray for Joan and her doctors. Joan has loved all the comments and the over 200 visits that her site has received in a little over two weeks. The many cards and the lovely flowers and candy and fruit have been great for both of us. I promise to have this site updated every couple of weeks to keep you in the loop. If Joan has to get scans every three months for ten years, which is a possibility, but we never have to pump her veins full of poisons both of us will be pretty happy people.