Health Update (first in years!) Part One

Long term readers of my weblog know that I started it way back in 2005, as I was commencing chemotherapy for mantle cell lymphoma. I had been diagnosed in 2003 and we went with watchful waiting for a couple of years before there was a need for chemo. Since plenty of people were interested in my potential demise, I decided it was easier to just start the blog then establish an email list (As Judy Anderson liked to tell me "Tom it's always all about you."). At the time Facebook was just starting up and not many people were familiar with it. Nowadays most people would just write up their situation on facebook. 

My hospital from the get go was Memorial Sloan Kettering and my oncologist was and still is Dr. Andrew Zelenetz. Chemotherapy was on an outpatient and weekend inpatient basis from September to December 2005.  Then in January I had a 20 day stay in MSK for high dose chemo and then a stem cell transplant – my own stem cells back to me to rebuild my immune system. And to make a long story short it all worked out with very little side effects (thank you Blessed Solanus Casey…). Here I am getting the transplant – which is very similar to a blood transfusion. I actually didn't feel as bad as I think I look in this picture. I was VERY fortunate – minimal side effects and able to keep working even while in Sloan. And I had the support of a HUGE number of family and friends – especially my great assistant and family friend Judy Anderson, who we miss every day. Here's something I posted on my blog – something Brigid had sent me two days post transplant.  Note from guest writer Brigid – Tim's song for Dad.  Whew. Might embarrass Tim now. So bottom line I made a good recovery.

The follow up was initially monthly, then quarterly, to semi-annually. Blood tests, CT scans – all good.

Dr. Zelenetz told me before the chemotherapy began that the mortality rate was about 3-4% (but lower at MSK) from the chemotherapy and there was 100% lymphoma relapse within ten years. So I was fortunate that my relapse wasn't for nearly 16 years, in the summer of 2021. So that's what Part 2 will be about, my relapse. BUT – SPOILER ALERT – things are going well.