My Husband's Cancers

My husband has two completely unrelated cancers. In April of 2009 after rotor tilling our vegetable garden area, the lymph nodes under both arms swelled up like water balloons. He finally went to see his Doctor in November of 2009 and after biopsies, PET scans and a bone marrow biopsy his Oncologist told us on January 19th, 2010 that he had Follicular Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma Stage 4. After 6 months of R-CHOP, with Filgrastim injections for a week after each infusion, the Lymphoma was put into remission, however a PET Scan showed some activity in his stomach area. An endoscopic exam showed a 4 cm tumor in the entry point to the stomach. It was biopsied and came back positive for Adeno carcinoma.....Stomach Cancer.

The Oncologist believed at first that it was the Lymphoma, he told us that it is rare to have two separate cancers. Like that should have eased our panic. We were dumb struck! Why hadn't the chemo done anything to the cancer in his stomach? I saw what it had done to the Lymphoma...his small brown potato sized tumors were shrunk to nothing after 2 infusions! I later learned that chemo targets specific cancers.

The Oncologist referred us to the surgeon on his team. Our first meeting with her was on August 17th, 2010. She cut right to the chase...I will never forget what she told us that she needed to do in order to remove the tumor. She said that she needed to remove his entire stomach. A complete gastrectomy! I truly thought that she was kidding, like she was leading with that and then was going to tell us what she really was going to do. She was not kidding. She never cracked a smile. As wonderful and kind as she is, beautiful too, we learned that she does not kid around when it comes to her job. She means business. She wanted surgery to be as soon as possible, September 1st to be exact. We left her office knowing that life was never to be the same...Never the same.