{Background on my Hodgkin’s story}

Diagnosis was made 10/28/2009. Mine is classical, owl-eyed Reed-Sternberg ‘ed, nodular sclerosing Hodgkin’s Lymphoma stage 2A. That means bilateral lymph involvement above the diaphragm with masses no larger than 33% of the chest cavity. However, I didn’t get the requisite giant lumps or fever or chills. My right jugular vein was so cartoonishly distended it could have belonged to a steroid- pumping wrestler. On my PET/CT, two supraclavicular nodes and one mediastinal mass lit up like the alien bodies they are, greedily sucking up the glucose based tracer. The path to diagnosis included a barrage of tests, including chest x-ray, CT, PET/CT, lymph biopsy by fine needle aspiration and by surgical excision, bone marrow testing, and not to mention a barrage of blood tests that left me in superhero-like neon arm bandages for many a day. The treatment plans are for four cycles of chemotherapy, which breaks down to two sessions per month for a total of 8 sessions, and adjunct external beam radiation therapy. Infusion of choice is ABVD – drugs adriamycin, bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine. Typical side effects from treatment include fatigue, nausea, GI upset, and alopecia.