The Diagnosis

Today, April 17th, I was diagnosed with T-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Lymphoma (T-ALL). I know the big word, but I really don't know what it means other than I have lymphoma which is a type of blood cancer. Yep, the big "C" word. This may have come as a shock to most of you, but for us, it was a 2-3 week process. It started with a swollen lymph node on my neck (about 3 mths ago). After waiting it out, per my doctor's instructions, they decided to do a blood test to make sure it wasn't leukemia. My results came back as low white blood count (not really low, but lower than it should be). So, I went to see a surgeon. She decided the best thing to do was to just get the lymph node out and do a biopsy on it. So on Monday, I went in and had a lymphotomy [another big word :-)]. She told me that when she looked at it, she thought it looked good. We got a call last night saying that she wanted us to come in this morning. We prepared ourselves for the worst. I think we actually shocked her because we went in and when she said it was bad news, I said to her "it's lymphoma? What do we do?". I will go to the oncologist tomorrow and will have more news then. Thank you to each of you who have already called, e-mailed, and messaged us. Many of you have asked what can you do. Right now, we are just asking that everyone pray and pray hard!! We are doing ok right now. Our spirits are high and we are in the fighting mode. I know that I have God on my side and we will come out on top of this thing. Lymphoma is a very cureable cancer from what we have heard, but as of right now, we are waiting for the appointment tomorrow. I will keep everyone informed.

We went to eat after the appointment and this is Rob's fortune from his fortune cookie. I thought it was great!