Paul's Heart

Life As A Dad, And A Survivor

Archive for the category “Education”

04 Sep 2014

Faces Of Lymphoma


September is National Blood Cancer Month, National Lymphoma Month, National Childhood Cancer month also.  These three annual recognitions actually tie in with one another, as lymphoma is often recognized as a childhood cancer.  Of lymphoma, and which I can personally speak of, Hodgkin’s Lymphoma is such a rare cancer, it makes up only 1% of the cancer diagnosis.  Strangely, it also boasts one of the higher cure rates for a cancer, yet it is also one of the most underfunded cancers.  Imagine, to be so close to finding a cure for everyone, yet it is not a priority for research because the current cure rate is acceptable.  I strongly disagree.

My story, like so many other long term survivors, have long medical histories of maladies that have struck us, and will effect us the rest of our lives.  It was our trade off for beating cancer.  For many of us, we often wonder if it was ever worth it.  Today, better and safer treatments, yield similar success stories without the severity of the side effects like many face, however, recurrences of their lymphoma are more frequent, and for some, still not successful.

My case in point.  The story of Alese Coco.  A television commercial aired several years ago which caught my attention.  To be honest, it was quite graphic.  And as a Hodgkin’s survivor, initially I felt offended at such a graphic commercial.  But then the reality hit me.  This commercial was the truth.  Please view the following link for the actual commercial:

http://www.shootonline.com/top-spot-week-alese-coco-fight-2-win-foundations-fight-2-win-out-draftfcb

Now if you are sitting there thinking, that is awful, and you really do not want to see more, that is where you could not be more wrong.  The truth is, any illness capable of taking a life, needs to have a cure found.  Sometimes it takes putting a face to a disease makes it hit closer to home.  As it stands right now, you have two faces, my face which is on the front of “Paul’s Heart” and Alese.  We are just normal people, not famous by any means.  So let me make lymphoma famous.  Here are a list of several celebrities who have battled lymphoma, and yes, even with the fame and money, still could not win their battle:

Paul Azinger – professional golfer

John Cullen and Saku Koivu- professional hockey players

Mario Lemieux – professional Hall Of Fame Hockey player and owner of the Penguins

Andres Gallaraga – professional baseball player for the Braves

Arte Johnson – famous comedian from “Laugh-in” days

Leshon Johnson and Carl Nelson – New York Giants football players

Lauren Hart – singer for the Philadelphia Flyers pregrame

Charles Lindgburgh – famed flyer died from Lymphoma

Charles Lowe – father of actors Robe Lowe and Chad Lowe

Mickey Mantle – famous New York Yankee

Roger Maris – Hall of Fame baseball player died from Lymphoma

Jackie Kennedy Onassis – former First Lady died from Lymphoma

Joey Ramone – Rock N Roller

Dan Rowen – comedian from Laugh-in died from Lymphoma

Fred Thompson – actor and US Senator

Arlen Spector – US Senator died from complications of Lymphoma

Mr. T. – actor from the A-Team television show

Gene Wilder – comedian and actor (wife Gilda Radnor died from Ovarian cancer)

Vivian Campbell – guitarist for Def Leppard (just completed treatment for a recurrence of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma)

Andy Whitfield – actor who portrayed “Spartacus” in the Starz mini-series died from lymphoma

Having been a fan of that mini-series, it struck me as odd that someone so physically in shape and strong, could have faced such a fate.  So now I have put a lot of famous faces to Lymphoma.  Imagine, but chances are you know more than 1% of the people I listed, yet the statistic is what it is.  Now imagine 1% of the people in your lives.  Imagine the 1% of the people in the world.

So, let us meet another non-famous person, teenager Roxanne:

https://www.akronchildrens.org/cms/meet_roxanne_hodgkins_lymphoma/

For me personally, I have met hundreds of cancer patients, not just lymphoma patients.  They all have faces.  They will never be famous.  But I will never forget what they have gone through, and for many, what they have lost.  So if you are reading this, you know at least one person who has battled lymphoma.  And I am telling you, we are so close to finding a cure for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.  And that is why I am making every effort I can, during this month of September, to make everyone aware of Lymphoma.  You can donate to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, the American Cancer Society if you wish.  But more importantly, share this article.  Help me to help others put a face to Lymphoma.

 

Posted in Cancer, Education, Family and Friends, Inspired By..., Side Effects, The Heart | Leave a comment
02 Sep 2014

Lymphoma – Technology and Treatments – So Much Better, But Not Good Enough


Treating lymphoma has always been about timing.  I cannot talk about treating non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma as I did not have it, nor do I know anyone who has battled it.  But as far as Hodgkin’s Lymphoma is concerned.  I was diagnosed six months before my first wedding (that is another post) and as I begged my oncologist (cancer doctor) that I wanted to hold off on any treatments until after my wedding, he was having no parts of it.  For a male patient, there really is no excuse for delaying treatment ever.  However, for a female who happens to be pregnant, this is a whole other issue.  For men, yes, sterility is an issue and for women as well, but when a woman is already pregnant, a hard decision has to be made whether to allow doctors to use toxic drugs to save her life, but also might adversely affect her baby’s life.  There is no guarantee.  I will talk about this type of decision in another post.

It has been over twenty five years since I underwent my first biopsy to diagnose my lymphoma.  And I am amazed to hear, as well as quite glad, that newer patients have not had to be subjected to the barbaric methods that I was diagnosed with.  But going back even forty and fifty and sixty years, cancer diagnostics have come a long way.  As for my experiences, here are three of the diagnostics that I rarely hear used today:

1)  bone marrow biopsy – taken from each side of my hip (felt like my ankles were being ripped up through my legs).  One side note to this, I actually had to have a third sample taken.  It seems that occurred after I heard my doctor say “oops” and claimed he had “lost” it.

2)  lymphangiogram – a cool sounding test, if you do not mind your legs being propped in a bent position for the entire procedure.  A slice is made into each foot, to all a doctor to use microscopic lenses to see lymph vessels (like blood vessels only much smaller) to inject a radioactive dye, that when subjected to an x-ray, lit my entire lymph system like a human Christmas tree to see where other possible affected lymph nodes might be located.

3) staging laparotomy – spleen removal, node biopsies, liver biopsy.  Not pleasant and quite painful.  An incision from sternum to belly button is made (any woman who has undergone a C-section will know this pain).

These three things were done to determine the staging of my disease, either 1, 2, 3, or 4.  By the time all was said and done, I was diagnosed 3b.  But in the decades since, a new kind of scan is now used to stage almost all cancers, a PET scan.  I only know enough from a few friends and my father who have undergone those scans to know they are no big deal.  In any case, I am glad that this new technology exists, however, it is still far from exact.  There are still uncertainties that exist during the staging process, and this can delay treatments.

So let’s talk about treatments.  Ask any radiation oncologist, and most will probably say they can cure Hodgkin’s Lymphoma with just radiation.  As any of us who grew up near a nuclear reactor like Three Mile Island, or know World War history, radiation in large amounts is a bad, bad, thing.  Side effects are brutal.  But radiation could give remission to certain cancer patients, especially Hodgkin’s patients.  Again, I will go more into side effects in detail in another post, but if you want to sneak a peak, I do have a link to the side effects from radiation I personally dealt with.

In the 1940’s, medicine discovered a drug, nitrogen mustard (a derivative of mustard gas, the same type dictator Sadaam Hussein used to kill his people), which had great results in giving people remission.  Just like radiation, it too had its drawbacks.  Besides being a deadly poison, it was also known to cause sterility in males during treatment.  Unfortunately for me, that occurred.  Shortly after that, a report came out that recommended that maximum treatments to reduce the possibility of sterility.  Yep, the two extra months of chemotherapy are probably what caused my sterility.

Like many people before me, I was treated with both radiation, mustargen, but also a cocktail of six other drugs, all carrying various risks.  And for survivors of Hodgkin’s from as far back as sixty years ago, yes, I know someone who has survived Hodgkin’s that long ago, these risks have become reality for us, and many quite critical to our health.  But again, over the decades since my treatments, the doctors found out that they could treat Hodgkin’s with less drugs, and soon, my chemo cocktail had been cut in half.  The hopes were to produce a remission more safely.  But it cannot be understated that the drugs are still dangerous, the damage to the human body still exists.

The last sentence for me became a reality this past year.  I met a young man who had done so well with his chemo therapy regimen, with the same drugs that I had been given.  Yet weeks later, he would be one of the rare patients who would develop a very bad reaction within two months of being declared in remission.  I did a post on Adriamyacin a couple of months ago, so you can find out the details there, and I will do another post later on.  But the long short of it, this young man, still a kid as far as I am concerned, died less than six months from the time that he was told to go ahead and enjoy his life.

Like I said, treatments today, while better than they were when I was treated, are still bad today.  We need better and safer treatments.  We need better and safer diagnostics.  We need better and safer follow-up guidelines.  I have no doubt in my mind, that had the young man who died as a result of the damage from his treatment, had he been followed up more closely being given a drug that was proven to cause potential damage to the heart, he would still be alive today.  A simple echocardiogram during the middle of the treatment, an inexpensive test when you put it in perspective that the lack of this test cost the man his life, could have given the doctors an opportunity to alter the treatment, or completely change the therapy regimen all together.

And so, during this month of September, National Lymphoma Month, I am going to inform you and educate why it is important to become aware of this rare disease that still needs a cure.  I am not asking you to make a donation, though I know I would personally appreciate it if you would.  But rather, I am about awareness.  Please, share this article, and the many that follow.  Share “Paul’s Heart.”  Together we can make a difference.

Posted in Cancer, Education, Family and Friends, Inspired By..., Side Effects, The Heart and tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
01 Sep 2014

Surviving Cancer – Is It Enough?


I was sitting on the bow of my friends boat this afternoon, headed for a popular local attraction in southern Florida.  I mention this because it was a beautiful day, a beautiful ride, and it gave me a lot of time about what I was going to write today.  In the wake of recent on-line challenges, the “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge”, “Happy Challenge”, and others (I have actually done the first two), I realized how much good had been done for ALS awareness, and also how happy a person I really am and can be.  While ALS is considered rare, putting a name to the disease, Lou Gehrig’s Disease, made the disease recognizable, and for many, personal.

I decided a week ago, that I would issue my own challenge, but to myself.  I am very grateful to the many readers and followers of “Paul’s Heart” and on the same Facebook page.  I have spoken a lot about my issues as a patient, a survivor, and as a caregiver of not just cancer, but a rare blood cancer called Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.  September is “Blood Cancer Awareness Month” but also recognized as “Lymphoma Month” for those that break it down.

The trick is, how do I make you care and develop awareness of a rare disease?  Sure I could issue an internet challenge.  I am sure everyone is trying to brainstorm the next big fundraiser.  But I think the big success of that challenge, is what I plan to do, put a face or make my challenge personal.  I am not going to ask you to anything but read, learn, become aware that just because a disease is not the most talked about, such as AIDS, breast or lung cancer, cardiac disease, does not mean that it does not deserve or need attention.  What you do with what you learn is up to you.  I am not challenging you to donate money, just become aware.  I am not asking you to do any stunt, just simply share what you read.

I am not a doctor, so you will not get medical advice from me.  What will you get?  Life experiences, of my own, and from the hundreds of people that I have come across over the last 24 years.  Twenty-four years!!  I have seen so much progress in the fight against cancer, and my cancer, Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, but it has not been enough.  Cancer has ravaged my family.  My grandmother died from two cancers, breast and ovarian.  My sister passed away a few years ago after battling “aplastic anemia” for the second time in her life (she had been in remission since the late 1970’s with her first battle).  This past May, I lost my father from lung cancer.  This is nothing compared to the dozens of friends that have passed from either the cancer itself or the many side effects that have developed either soon after treatment ended, or late in life like I have had to deal with.

For the next 30 days, I will post 30 posts pertaining to a cancer that I know all too well, in recognition of Lymphoma Month, Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.  I will post about my own story, other patients and survivors, caregivers, and topics such as emotions, family, fertility, employment, treatment options and many more.  I will also post other stories not cancer related because “Paul’s Heart” is more than just a cancer blog.  It is about my life as a survivor and as a single dad.  Of course, if you wish, you may comment directly on the blog, or write me at pedelmanjr@yahoo.com, or visit my Facebook page for “Paul’s Heart.”

I am a 24 year survivor of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, stage 3.  I was treated with some of the most toxic drugs.  For years I have struggled with why I have survived all these years, while so many do not.  As time has gone on, new treatments have come, but enough has not been done to cure Hodgkin’s.  Follow “Paul’s Heart” through September, and you will see why more needs to be done.

Posted in Cancer, Education, Family and Friends, Inspired By..., Side Effects, The Heart | Leave a comment

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