|
On May 1st, 2009, I was diagnosed with a rare form of Non-Hodgkin's B-Cell
lymphoma (mantle cell lymphoma), which is very difficult to treat, and is the
most aggressive and deadly of all lymphomas. Only 5% of
lymphoma cases are this kind. There have been only 14 cases in Central Virginia
since it was first classified as its own unique type of lymphoma in 1991. The 5 year survival rate is only 50%. Starting May
29th, 2009 I began a series of chemotherapy treatments by IV (R-CHOP) that
ran through late August, 2009. After 4 R-CHOP treatments, I was
still not in remission. The amount of cancer in my bone marrow was at 87% (we
don't know the percentage before these first treatments, the doctor estimated
near 100%). This disease is normally not curable, and even if
you do get into remission, it normally comes back within one to three years and
then chemo treatments may not help. Stronger chemo treatments were begun at UVA
on October 1st (hyperCVAD).
For that treatment, I was an in-patient for 5 to 7 days with chemo flowing 24 hours
a day. After three of these treatments, four weeks apart, my bone marrow
involvement dropped from 87% to 14%. Unfortunately, even though it was working
to kill the cancer, I was unable to continue hyperCVAD treatments due to a
bad reaction to one of the main drugs (ARA-C). I
got the last hyperCVAD
treatment at the end of November, 2009. In 2010, I
continued additional, different chemo treatments (Rituxan
and Velcade) in order to try and
achieve complete remission. In February, after 8 treatments of Velcade
and 5 treatments of Rituxan,
I was down to 4%. After 16 Velcade treatments in
2010, I was declared in 'clinical remission' on August 4th, 2010. I have
completed 2 years of Rituxan maintenance immunotherapy every other month.
Since August 2010, I have not been receiving any chemo of any kind.
I will continue the BHSBees.com
website as long as I am able, and
I hope that the BHSBees.com website will continue to be a useful tool for the
Brookville-Timberlake community, the students and alumni. You can also keep up with
my progress on my Facebook website:
www.facebook.com/larryandsusan or
at
www.caringbridge.org/visit/larry_lewis
or write to me
directly at
LarryAndSusan@bhsbees.com
Click here for Larry's Status Updates
|
