Anyone still reading??

For those still following along at home I do have a little bit of an update in my "journey"!

October 2017 
I had just been diagnosed with tonsillitis (for the first time in my life) the day before i was due to have my usual CT scan. I mentioned this to the GP and he said it would be fine to have the scan. The hospital called the day of my scan to confirm a few things, so I mentioned it to them and they also said its fine. I was still a little concerned that it would show something up on the CT scan so I mentioned it to another 2 people when I arrived at the hospital who both didn't seem concerned either. Fast forward to a week later when I saw my specialist for the results. There was a few lymph nodes in my neck that had increased in size since my last CT scan. This had him worried of a possible relapse in my Hodgkin's. He booked me in for a PET scan to see what was happening and to see if my cancer was back or it was due to me having tonsillitis. 

November 2017 
I had my PET scan in November, this showed increased activity over my last one years ago. It was then that I was booked in for a biopsy on the lymph node in my neck. At this stage it was looking suspicious that it could be back. He called a surgeon while i was in the room to see when they could get me in and if they would do it as even though the nodes had increased they were still quite small and couldn't be felt by touching the neck. The surgeons basically said they didn't want to do it as they wouldn't be able to feel where they need to cut and what they would be needing to biopsy. He then said he would organise for a fine needle biopsy to be done under ultrasound and a local anaesthetic and would let me know when that would be. The benefit of having the surgeon do it would be that they could ensure they got enough lymph node to be able to biopsy it. By doing it with a needle they can't guarantee they aren't just getting fatty tissue.

December 2017
I went in for my needle biopsy. It took them a while to figure out if they could do it or not as they also couldn't feel/see what they were supposed to biopsy. The biggest node they could find was right next to an artery so the DR didn't really want to attempt to stick a needle next to it. He went and spoke with another DR who then came and looked at the ultrasound and was quite confident that he could do it. The whole procedure wash't as bad as i thought it would be. The worst part was the local anaesthetic, other then that i couldn't feel anything. They took 3/4 samples to give them the best chance of getting what they needed. 

December 15th 2017
I arrived at my appointment to be told that they didn't have any results yet which was frustrating as I had been stressing about the results all day. He called pathology to see if the samples had been looked at yet but they hadn't. He didn't think that he would have the results until the next week so we went home and he said he would call when he had results. Around 5:30pm that same day he called and said he had the results. Majority of the biopsies they took were just fatty tissue. A very small amount of it was actually lymph node, however that small amount came back negative for Hodgkins. He said the amount they could test wasn't enough to rule out that it hadn't returned. He said he spoke with the DR that had done the needle biopsy to see if they could do another one but they said they would just get the same sort of samples as it was difficult enough the first time. He gave me 2 options. Option 1 - Go in the following week for a biopsy under general anaesthetic or Option 2 - Wait until the end of January 2018 and have another CT and PET scan. I suggested waiting and he agreed this was the best option. Hodgkins Lymphoma is a slow growing cancer of waiting a few months would not be bad.

January 22nd 2018
PET scan day!

January 23rd 2018 
CT scan day!

February 2nd 2018
I got my results. No scans had got any worse since the last ones, which is great! Numbers still aren't back to normal levels but have slightly decreased! The biggest lymph node in my neck at my last CT was 17x12 and this one was 15x11. The highest activity number on my last PET scan was 10 and this one was 6. There are no other nodes in my body that have increased. Going on these results and the fact that i had tonsillitis for a 2nd time just before Christmas we decided to wait and redo CT and PET scans again in 3 months. 

May 2018 
I had my CT & PET scan with results on Friday 4th May. There was again some slight decrease in numbers, so its looking less and less likely that i have relapsed. We are just now monitoring it. I see my specialist in August just for a clinical checkup, no scans or blood tests! Then around November I will have another lot of scans. This will be the 5 year mark of getting the "all clear" and being told I am cancer free, I am being positive that after those scans this will still be the case!