The Ongoing Journey

We met with Dr. Vincent Hansen at the McKay Dee Hospital location of the Huntsman Cancer Institute. He told us that Troy would need to have a bone marrow biopsy to determine whether the cancer had traveled into his bone marrow and he would also need a PET CT scan (this scan lets the doctors know everywhere the cancer has spread to, they do this by injecting a radioactive die into Troy and scanning him from head to toe), a MUGA scan (which tells the doctors what capacity Troy's heart pumps at a resting rate, this helps them to know how quickly Troy can take the particular medications needed to treat the cancer) and, after all of this, he will need to have a port-a-cath placed in the left subclavian chest area. The site below has some pretty good pictures of what a port-a-cath looks like.

http://www.tirgan.com/portacat.htm

The port-a-cath is placed just under the skin, a long tube is then connected to the port and threaded up into a main vein in the neck. Since the medicines used in the chemo are so strong they could do damage to the smaller veins so this is the very best way for him to receive his chemotherapy.

Well, we received a call the very next morning stating that Troy had all of his test lined up. He was to get his Muga scan and the bone marrow biopsy that following Wednesday, followed by the PET CT scan on Thursday. His surgery was then set up for Monday, September 8th.

All tests went on as planned but I have to say that it was very difficult watching him have his bone marrow biopsy. He is such an incredibly strong man! His bones are so strong that the rod used to burrow into the bone bent.

The following Monday, September 8th, we arrived at McKay Dee Hospital at 6:15 am as he was to be the first surgery of the day. Troy was prepped for surgery (I have some great pics of him in his cute little gown and surgery hat but they are on my phone so I'll have to try to add those later ;-). He got out of surgery and recovered very quickly. Once they released him, we went to Oncology and met with Dr. Hansen. He informed us that Troy's bone marrow biopsy came back negative. Praise be to God!!! What a huge relief this was! He also told us that Troy has Stage III Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma and that he has a very excellent chance of beating this. Troy then received a blood draw which showed that all of his counts, with the exception of his platelets, were within normal ranges. His platelets were slightly elevated but nothing to be alarmed about. Once our visit was complete with Dr. Hansen, we were walked back to the infusion room where he was "plugged in" and chemotherapy began. This was around 12:oo pm. We ended up leaving the hospital at around 7:30 pm that evening.