Down a rabbit hole...

Put a child in a room with a table full of cookies and tell them not to touch or eat any of it....seriously how long will that last. Thats how I feel about the Internet. Everyones said don’t go looking, its just wrong, you’ll only be upset. Well here we are right now on the Internet. You’re reading these words transported by my phone to the universe and yet I’m not supposed to google search Mediastinal Large B Cell Lymphoma - yeah...right.

So I’ve googled and now I’ve sent several questions to my dr - I’m hoping he’s patient because so far I’ve questioned the stupidity of microblading to the veracity of the drug treatment that’s going to cure me. The little app the hospital gave me to keep in contact with the dr also holds all the test results and bloodwork I’ve had over the last five years, you know, when I was healthy. The only variance is not the the bloodwork which is perfectly fine for the last five years but that CT scan with the mass and the biopsy with the diagnosis “primary mediastinal b cell lymphoma“ (pmbcl) a form of non-Hodgkins lymphoma (NHL! Maybe I need a Gretzky jersey - but I’m aging myself). According to some website I saw only 10% of all NHL players have PMBCL - wow there I go again always a non conformist point off the curve, would it kill me one time to just blend in (apparently so - Mom, forgive my dark humor). The approved treatment is DA-R-EPOCH. Acronyms are my life. DA (Dose Adjusted) Rituximab, and four other drugs, here I looked it up on the Internet for you: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPOCH_(chemotherapy)

now I trust my dr. hell he did the clinical trials on this cocktail but it’s not an easy road - it’s 5 days being hooked up to something that’s going to feed death and destruction through my body killing everything good and bad in its path - it’s literally scorch the earth and it’s five days every month that no matter what I won’t be able to be in denial. Now I know what you’re saying - there is no easy chemo and chemo is supposed to kill everything in its path but remember I’m a non conformist. That doesn’t mean I have to do everything the hard way just different. So of course I looked this shit up and besides the usual chemo side effects it has another one: a thing called thromboembolism caused by increased toxicity. Sounds great - a blood clot - terrific - I’m toxic - cue Britney Spears (mom- look it up). The other treatment the non-conformists get is called R-CHOP. Everything R-EPOCH has except the E and it’s given in two hours in one day instead of 24 hours of five days. Sounds like a walk in the park. According to NIH (our US resident dr geniuses) two years after treatment for patients with PMBCL 89% of R-CHOP patients and 91% of DA-R-EPOCH patients were still alive. Now who are these 2 percent? How do we know I wouldn‘t be in that 2%. So of course I type a message to my dr and leave it in the app. Again I’m not questioning his judgement but the Internet (which I’m not supposed to look at raises these questions). waiting for a response. And yes, my mom and I are still having chemo at the same time.