Positive

Well, I got the results of my PET scan today. Positive, the same two nodes in my groin. They're smaller than before, and less active than before, but they're still cancer.

I'm in the same boat as I was before the bone marrow transplant and $150,000 in medical bills. You'll pardon me if I seem a little disturbed. I'm not sure exactly how I feel - am I royally pissed off at cancer for putting me through this, or am I discouraged that all that suffering added up to a big zero in terms of outcome? Both, I suspect, but I'm having trouble disentangling the threads at the moment. I'll get back to you when my thinking on the matter clarifies.

Let's view this the way Tom Wolfe claims test pilots view things in The Right Stuff.

I've tried A - ABVD chemotherapy
I've tried B - ESHAP chemotherapy
I've tried C - autologous bone marrow transplant

Now I'm trying D, radiation therapy. Five weeks of said radiation, five times a week, 15 minutes per session. I don't know when exactly the radiation will start, other than soon. The hospital and the oncology clinic are holding talks to determine who can do it the most conveniently and inexpensively. The doctor is confident it'll work. I wish I was as optimistic as she is, though maybe when I've had time to think about it, I will be.

Is there an E? There is - an allogenic bone marrow transplant, which differs from an autologous bone marrow transplant in this respect: in an autologous bone marrow transplant, the transplant is done to restore one's bone marrow, which has been killed by high-dose chemotherapy (killed not once, but twice, and still the fucking cancer persists!). In an allgenic bone marrow transplant, the goal is to induce a modified version of graft-versus-host disease with the goal of killing my native immune system with its mutant Reed-Sternberg cells and replacing it with someone else's immune system. Doesn't sound fun to me. Or cheap.

Is there an F? I don't think there is. I'm running out of options.

Needless to say, I think buying a guitar wouldn't be a particularly good idea right now. I was going to have a death-to-cancer party, but that idea seems laughably naive in retrospect. All of a sudden I don't feel much like having a party.