Good News!

This winter has been hard not only because of the abnormal weather but because of abnormalities which showed up on my routine post-cancer CT scans.

On December 30 I went for a routine CT scan - this was just over one year from the last one as I was switching to a once a year scan from every six months. The results came back indicating there were at least two lymph nodes which were larger than seen on previous scans. Sharon and I visited my oncologist, who put a real scare into me. He was concerned that the Hodgkins lymphoma was back and if it was, would require more chemo followed by a bone marrow transplant. Scary stuff.
I had a PET scan to help with the diagnosis, and the PET indicated a number of lymph nodes "lighting" up with an uptake of the radioactive glucose. Still scary. This scan was followed up with a needle biopsy of my left inguinal lymph node last Tuesday.

We got the results this week and met with the oncologist yesterday. His determination and that of the pathologist is indolent follicular lymphoma. This is not great news, but it is indeed good news. This is a slow growing lymphoma which does not require treatment unless I become symptomatic. I have no symptoms - just signs of enlarged lymph nodes in my CT scan and lymph nodes that lit up on my PET scan. So, while it would have been best to have no lymphoma, I do not have a recurrence of Hodgkins which was the worst possible diagnosis. I will see my oncologist in three months, plan on a CT scan in six months, and watch for symptoms. It is difficult realizing that I have moved beyond or past having Hodgkins lymphoma to having non-Hodgkins lymphoma. But, of the many types of non-Hodgkins lymphoma to have, what I apparently have is not a bad one to have. Slow growing and treatable with an antibody if necessary.

We are OK with this diagnosis and feel we can now continue living and planning life after taking about six weeks off. Now we can plan a trip or two to Europe this summer, trips to Oregon, and where ever else we want to go!

Enough!

Enough cold. Enough snow. Enough winter. Enough already. As of this morning we have had 23 below 0° days in Chicago. And, with this weekend's snow we are up to 62.1" of snow for the season. We are promised a warmup to as much as 32° in the next week or so but the wether pattern that has produced all of our cold this winter may well continue into March.

The saving grace for me is a higher number of days with sunshine than we normally see in a Chicago winter. Today for example we have loads of sun and blue skies. Ice and snow is melting on the south facing roof and we have fantastic icecicles. But right now, 3:45 in the afternoon it is a whopping 10° outside.

BRRRRRRRRRR!

More Snow, Damn.

The sky opened up and it started snowing late yesterday afternoon and it is still coming down. Looks like about six inches here and I am done but the snow isn't. We seem to be done with the system snow now and are getting lake effect snow. We are due for more snow this weekend. And that one, as this one and the last one, are followed by plunging temperatures. This is a winter for the record books.

I am taking a break from blowing snow. There is so much piled at the end of our driveway it is hard to blow snow over it - and it is slowly blocking the end of the drive. Bless Carl for doing the sidewalks in our block, that made it a bit easier. I did Linda's sidewalk and stopped and had a nice chat.

Shelby ran out the back door a while ago. He looked at the snow and realized there was no escape and headed back in. Sometimes he does the right thing.

Yesterday and the day before I sat in our back room and watched activity at the bird feeder. On both days there was little activity early in the day, but by midday there was much activity. Late yesterday, around sunset, the bird activity peaked the feeder and the snow pack underneath was very busy. This morning in the snow, there was a squirrel on the feeder but no bird activity. Are they just hunkered down? I will be, but U have more snow to blow and shovel. Later.