Christie’s in the hospital again - CHOP didn’t work
Hi everyone…
Just a brief note to let you know what’s going on. My husband and I are home for a very little while to spend some time with Ryan, our 17-year-old son, get some groceries for home and the hospital (Christie won’t eat their food - suffice it to say the hospital she’s in is legendary for being a BAD hospital with inedible food), and briefly catch up with people.
I went with her for her chemo appointment on Thursday morning. Before they got started, her oncologist came walking in and motioned for us to follow her. She took Christie to a room, gave her a brief exam, and called an ambulance to transport us to the hospital that the clinic is affiliated with. She wanted a PET scan but insisted on a CT scan at the absolute least and wanted Christie admitted for observation. We suspect she already knew then what was to happen.
Bottom line: CHOP wasn’t working and the lymphoma spread. When first diagnosed last October, Christie had 4 affected lymph nodes in her abdominal cavity and 1 in her left axillary area. She now has several in her abdominal cavity, 3 in her pelvic area, 1 under her right armpit, 1 on her right side, 3 on the right side of her groin, 3-4 in her right upper thigh, 2 in her neck, and 1 on her left temple.
The onc changed Christie’s chemo from CHOP to ESHAP. She will be in the hospital for at least 5 days for every treatment, and we have to learn how to give her Neupogen shots (that’s not so hard, really).
Further, Christie is going to need an auto SCT. The hospital where she is doesn’t do them but there are two hospitals in Dallas that do. The social worker at the cancer center is already working on helping us figure out how we’re going to get this accomplished. It has already been suggested that we do a few fundraisers and see what help we can get from family (HA!), friends, charitable organizations, cancer organizations, etc. If her SSI ever gets approved, she will have Medicaid, and we can get Medicaid to cover this.
I have to walk the dogs now, then get to the grocery store, and won’t be back for another couple of days so I won’t be able to respond to anyone right away. I’ll try to check back in soon. Until then, please keep us in your prayers and meditations, and we’ll keep all of you in ours.
This entry was posted on Friday, March 6th, 2009 at 11:44 AM and is filed under John Peter Smith Hospital, anaplastic large cell lymphoma, cancer, childhood cancer, lymphoma, teen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.