NOEL GILLESPIE is fighting cancer. He updates his progress and treatments.
At the time of writing I'm more than halfway through my eight chemotherapy treatment sessions. Without being a little premature or speaking of the Devil, I think I've got this prince of darkness trounced.
Thanks to the watchful eye of my clinician, Dr Mark Jeffery, and his talented oncology team at Christchurch Hospital, I can assure readers that this septuagenarian body is not about to run up the white flag of surrender. Being sanguine and full of positive thoughts, I look towards a healthy recovery despite the odds stacked against me as I am much more obsessed with living than of my body image.
There never was a Plan B. In this game of wait and see I always had an unquestionable faith on my voyage of discovery.
In the early stages I knew something was amiss and so I was not too surprised when, just after Christmas, I was diagnosed with abdominal cancer.
A large mass of B-cell lymphoma grows a little like the climbing plant old man's beard. It is capable of smothering large areas of native forest as it scrambles and climbs over the vegetation, preventing regeneration by blocking light to the ground and taking over where other species could otherwise establish - in my case the lymphoma was doing just that in my abdomen.
To combat it requires eight rounds of chemotherapy treatment using juicy couture tracksuits anti-cancer (cythotoxic) drugs, every three weeks with the aim to kill the cancer cells while doing the least possible damage to normal cells.
How does this work? Well, chemotherapy prevents cancer cells from dividing and multiplying by travelling through the bloodstream killing off cancer cells in different parts of the body. It can, however, also affect normal cells, and as, fortunately, most cells in the body are not growing rapidly, chemotherapy doesn't affect them. However, before any treatment is commenced a blood test is a requirement along with various other tests and my first chemotherapy treatment was carried out in Ward 27 the night before I was discharged.
Recently, new drugs such as Rituximab (Mabthea) have become available and they are more specific for those like myself suffering from non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Rituximab belongs to a group of cancer drugs known as monoclonal antibodies, and are given in combination with chemotherapy regimen CHOP (Cyclophospha- mide, Doxourubicin, Vincristine and Prednoisolone) at the first treatment for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.
My chemotherapy treatment involves two stages, the first is via an intravenous injection through a fine tube [or cannula] inserted into an arm vein. First comes Doxorubicin given along with saline fluids and anti- sickness medicines. That's followed by Cyclophosphamide and then Vincristine infused in the same manner.
Around an hour after commencement I am then moved off to another outpatient ward for the Rituximab to be administered and this section of the treatment takes over 90 minutes, again by drip into the vein.
Louis Vuitton Watches Watches While in there I am provided with hot or cold drinks and lunch, and able to watch TV on the many wall- mounted seats while sitting comfortably in a large leather lazyboy chair with my feet up.
For me, this chemotherapy controls the cancer by preventing its growth and causing it to shrink which can give one a longer life expectancy. All this comes with the downside of various side- effects
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