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Patient Story |
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Kara Knoxville, TN United States female Living with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma for 2 years Age: 28 My name is Kara, I’m 25, from Knoxville, TN. I was 4 months pregnant and at my routine checkup and pap smear. At this visit, when the doctor examined me, I bled ALOT. She said it was normal, that the area was so vascular during pregnancy. But my pap smear came back abnormal. She decided to do another in 3 months and sent me on my way. 3 months later, I went in for another pap and it came back normal. I was so relieved. But when she checked me again, I again, bled ALOT. So she decided to biopsy the area, saying she felt like this might be overkill as far as testing, but felt the biopsy was warranted. A week went by and I didn’t hear anything. Finally, the doctor’s office nurse told me to come in right away. I knew it was something bad, I thought it was going to be cervical cancer. I went in with my mom, and she told me I had diffuse large b cell lymphoma. Immediately my concern went to my pregnancy, and what was going to happen. This was a Thursday. Friday she sent me in for a steroid shot to help the babies lungs develop, and another on Saturday. I had a rest on Sunday, and by Monday I was in the OR delivering a baby girl. She spent 2 weeks in the NICU, but was healthy otherwise. I went through various staging tests, and was found to be Stage IVE with involvement just about everywhere including my spine, cervix, breasts, auxiliary nodes, heart, and shoulder. SO, I started round one of CHOP-R in the hospital and finally went home. After 2 cycles I had almost complete resolution of most of the lymphoma, but cardiac function took a dip and I was switched from Adriamycin to Doxil. And here I am, just had a PET/CT which was clear about a week ago, I’m about 3 weeks out from my last chemo, and will have another scan in May. I’ll have a lumbar puncture with possible intrathecal chemo in a month or so, depending on if I have CNS involvement, which he doesn’t think I do. I had no bone marrow involvement and my MRI of the brain was negative. So that’s my story! |
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