October 1, 2014 is the two year anniversary of the day that I was diagnosed with a slow growing form of Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma.

I am so thankful that I have not needed treatment. I also feel so much more encouraged and upbeat this year. In May, I began working with Dina, a wellness coach, who showed me that I don’t need to take a passive role in my health and that there are many things I can do and many ways that I can work on improving my health myself.

My doctor had told me there was nothing I could do to lower my white blood cell count. But I am trying. I am learning the differences between conventional medicine and holistic medicine. I have worked on changing my eating habits by eating more organic foods, juicing, and by cutting way back on sugar.

I am feeling empowered, engaged, and in control. I even took an extra blood test, in addition to the blood test I get every three months, and talked with a nutritionist to understand all the components in the metabolic panel (a common blood test) and to monitor the effects of the changes I’ve made in my eating habits.

And so I move forward, encouraged, and without fear, on this new journey.

One year ago today I was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. One year ago I was scared and didn’t know what to expect. It felt like my whole life had been turned upside down.

The kind of cancer that I have is not what you think of when you think of the word cancer. The cancer that I have is non-aggressive and very slow growing. I haven’t had to have any treatment; the doctors just watch and take blood every three month to see if there are any changes.

Being diagnosed with cancer has caused me to examine my life and to ask what is important in life. If I hadn’t been diagnosed, I probably would not have thought about these things. I would have continued to be oblivious to the passage of time.

What is life all about? What is the meaning of life and the purpose that we are here on earth for? Although I have thought about it and read lots of books and done yoga to get in touch with my inner self, I still haven’t figured out all the answers. I’m grateful that things are ok and that I am healthy. I will continue to look, watch, and wonder. I will continue my journey.

My oncologist sent me to see a specialist, to help determine whether or not treatment would be appropriate at this time. The appointment with the specialist was on Thursday, October 25th, 2012 at a hospital in the city.

I had scheduled the afternoon off from work in order to go to the appointment. It was the type of fall day where the weather was in some state of change. The weather report had said that towards late afternoon, the temperature would get colder and there would be heavy rain and possible thunderstorms.

The day started out mild and fairly warm but the winds really set in by mid-day. As I was walking to my car to leave work, I felt the wind swirling around me. The sun was hidden behind a cloud. The weather seemed to match how I was feeling that day. I felt like one of the fall leaves being blown from the trees by a heavy wind, pulled in different directions, not knowing what the outcome of that day’s appointment would be – not sure where I would end up and feeling like I did not have any control over where the winds would take me.

In a little while, we were at the doctor’s office within in the hospital, waiting. The doctor came in and examined me. She checked for swollen lymph nodes. She was poking around in my armpits with her fingers. At one point she said, “Do you feel that?” I did feel something. It didn’t hurt but I could feel her push on something. She pushed it one way and then the other. She said it was a swollen lymph node. Oddly, it was kind of interesting, like, ok, now I feel what they are talking about! Even in the midst of a serious doctor appointment, there was that little light-hearted moment for me. Those type of moments come at the strangest times, don’t they?

The white blood cells that have changed into cancerous cells like to congregate in the lymph nodes. It’s like their hideout I guess.White blood cells are the warrior cells that fight against bacteria, viruses, and other germs.

When these cells become cancerous, they are like rogue invaders in disguise. The other cells can’t tell that they aren’t good warrior cells anymore but that they’ve changed into the bad guys. Since the other cells can’t recognize them, they don’t kill them off. The bad guy cells also have a longer life span than the good cells, ironic as that may be!

After she examined me, the doctor sat down to talk to us. She summarized everything we knew so far and asked if I had questions. I told her that I wished I could know for sure which sub-type of indolent (slow-growing) Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma that I have. There are many sub-types, and they didn’t know definitely which I had.

The doctor acknowledged that of course as a patient, a person wants to know what kind they have. That is normal, and something that anyone would expect. She said that unfortunately blood results don’t always fit neatly into the little boxes of which sub-type of disease it could be. Sometimes they have to sort of make a guess by process of elimination. But, the doctor said that in a way, it didn’t really matter. What matters is knowing how to treat the disease when I need treatment.

One way they determine what kind of treatment is by the antigens present in people’s bodies. An antigen is “a molecule that binds to an anitbody and initiates an immune response because of the body’s recognition of that molecule as foreign.” (from “Understanding Pathophysiology” by Huether and McCance). I don’t really understand this but I hope to some day! Apparantly, it’s almost like the different blood types. People have different blood types. In the same way, people’s bodies produce different antigens. So that is the most important information, and they do know which anitigen my body produces. With that information, they will determine how to specialize the treatment when I do need it.

I remember that the doctor then used the word “pesky” to describe the indolent (slow-growing) type of Lymphoma. She said it very seriously and very slowly but when she did, I could feel all the tension leave my body. Pesky, I thought. Well that doesn’t sound very scary, just sounds more annoying than anything else.

The doctor said that these cells would be hanging around and eventually build up to a level where I would need treatment to knock them into remission. For now, it is just time to “watch and wait.” This term “watch and wait” is the actual way they describe monitoring an illness like this. I will go to the doctor every three months (at least for the first year) for them to check on whether there are any changes from the last time. The doctor said that we will only know how things will turn out over time. She said it could be one year, or three years, or five years, or ten years before I would need treatment. She said that because of my (young) age, at some point in my life, it’s likely that I will need treatment, but I don’t for now.

We left the doctor’s office with a huge sigh of relief. When we stepped outside, we noticed that the temperature had become noticably colder. As we started to drive home, rain started pouring from the sky as if in some type of mad rage. I felt as if it was all the tension that I had felt before the appointment draining from my body and draining from the skies above.

The date was October 1st, 2012. I sensed that something was up the minute the doctor came into the room. She didn’t say hello in quite the same way. She got down to business right away. “They did find something,” she said. Just a few minutes before I remember waiting for the doctor to come in. My husband and I were in the doctor’s office waiting for the results from the blood cytometry test. When you are waiting to hear results from a blood test, or any test, the mintues tick by at a dreadfully slow pace. Will there be something, or will it be ok? Will this anxiety finally be over? Will I be able to just forget about this whole thing and move on? Sitting, waiting, your mind goes back and forth from ”It’s nothing”, and then, “maybe it’s something, what if it’s something?”, and then, “it must be nothing”. Back and forth your mind goes, like the pendulum on a grandfather’s clock.

Then, the door opened and I drew in my breath. The doctor came into the room and she said, “They did find something.”

She began talking about Lymphoma and the different types of Lymphoma and how more testing would be necessary to determine which kind. Confusion and disbelief swirled through my head. Is this really happening? Is this a dream? Have I stepped through some type of bizarre looking glass? WIll I wake up tomorrow and this will have never happened?

I needed to ask a direct question. “Do I have Lymphoma?” I stammered. I could barely pronounce the word. I actually stumbled over it a few times. The doctor said, “Yes.” I asked one more question. “Is that cancer?” The doctor said…..”Yes.”

The doctor continued and said that I would need to get a CT scan to check for, among other things, if my spleen was enlarged. I remember feeling my face move. My eyes defintely got larger. Strange thoughts went through my head. I thought, “My spleen wound not turn on me like that, it’s part of me. It wouldn’t go against me.” Thankfully when the doctor examined me she said that it did not feel like it was enlarged, but that the CT scan would tell for sure. She said that the scan would also show if I had any enlarged lymph nodes. She also mentioned that I would need to get a bone marrow biopsy.

In that moment, scheduling those two tests suddenly felt like the most important and urgent thing in my life. I thought, my schedule is open – whenever they have time, I will be there. Work seemed like a vague notion. I will take a personal day. If I have a meeting, I will cancel or postpone. Things that seemed so important before suddenly had no meaning. There was new meaning now, there were new priorities. We never think about our health – we take it for granted unless or until something happens to it.

I also thought about my husband sitting next to me. We had just been married four months earlier, almost to the day. I felt like apologizing – we were just starting a new life together and then I received this diagnosis. He had lost two close family members in the past to cancer. I felt sorry to burden him with the fact that I had an illness.

The doctor asked if I had any questions. I began to cry just a little bit. I apologized. I said, I’m sorry, but this is just really shocking. She agreed and was very patient, ready to answer any question I might have. Finally, when she was getting ready to leave, she told me not to worry. Somehow, the way that she said it, I felt like she really meant it. I clung to her words as if they were a teddy bear or a soft warm blanket. She had led me to this looking glass world and I had stepped through into it. There was a new path I had to embark on but I held her words close to me as I began on my journey.