Technical Stuff

Right, I'm not going to go into a whole lot of detail here, there's a stack of info on the net to be found (as many of you already have) - I'll put some links at the end of this post, but this is what you need to look up:

What I have is "Hodgkin's Lymphoma", also sometimes known as "Hodgkin Lymphoma" or "Hodgkin's Disease". It is a cancer of the lymphatic system, which is part of the body's immune system.

I'm at stage 2B. Put simply, the 2 means that I have lumps in more than one lymph group (both sides of neck, both armpits - there's flashy names for them but I can't remember them), but only on one side of the diaphram (i.e. not in the groin). The B means I have other symptoms, which I've mentioned. It's better than 3 or 4, but not as good as 1. Shocking huh?

The treatment I'm going to have is ABVD combination chemotherepy. It's a drug based treatment based on four drugs, to be given on one day, with 2 weeks break, then again, then 2 weeks... etc etc. One "cycle" is two lots of 2 weeks, so 1 month, and I'm almost definately going to be having 6 cycles - so 6 months of treatment, 12 lots of chemo.

My treatment and and any futher testing I require will all be conducted at the Royal Marsden Hospital in Sutton - they're probably the leading cancer hospital in South England and they're only a 20 minute drive from home, so that's a stroke of luck I guess! I'll be an outpatient, based from the 'Bud Flannegan' outpatient department.

Good websites for those who want more info are:

www.lymphomas.org.uk

www.cancerbackup.org.uk

...and of course Wikipedia's good, although perhaps not quite as reliable. If anyone finds any others they think are especially good please let me know & I'll add them to the list. Thanks to Lex I've also got scans of all the literature I've been given by the hospitals, so if anyone wants that I can forward it on, but most of it is repeated on these websites anyway.