The news, friends, is not good.
The biopsy from back on my birthday shows significant infiltration of the bone marrow by the more aggressive of the two lymphomas that I had before. This pretty solidly explains why my blood counts have been so low; there isn’t any room for the bone marrow stem cells to operate properly. In fact, the pathologist reported that it was difficult to spot any stem cells in the sample at all!
My spleen is bigger, but not as big as last time. Some lymph nodes are bigger, but not as large or as widespread as last time.
In addition, there may be some water around my heart. I’ll be getting that checked out further to see how that will impact treatment.
Today is my day off from medical stuff. Tomorrow, a transfusion and an LP to make sure it hasn’t spread back into my brain. The next day: into the hospital for heavy duty chemo.
And when this new type of chemo wipes it away, I’ll probably be getting another stem-cell transplant. The scarier type this time.