jpeileenjack

My battle with cancer officially started on 10/16/08 with a confirmation from my physician that the sample they collected during a core needle biopsy was in fact lymphoma. What was surprising about this diagnosis was that it came as a complete surprise to not only my family physician, but to me too! The Reader’s Digest version of the story is that I went to my family physician for a routine annual physical with absolutely no pain or symptoms. Given that I see my physician every 4 months to have my HbA1c tested (I’m diabetic), I viewed the visit to be more of an annoyance and assumed that nothing would have changed in the last 4 months. Within 10 days of that routine annual physical, I was diagnosed with Stage 3A Diffuse Large B-Cell non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. I started my chemotherapy treatments 11/19/08 and finished my 8 rounds of R-CHOP chemotherapy on 4/17/09. Through that time I remained optimistic and actually continued to run (I’m a 36 year old runner) until my 4th chemo treatment and only missed 4 days of work. I was told I was in remission on August 6, 2009 and have been thankful for every day since then!