[QUOTE=R.D. Silverman;325808]I have mantle cell lymphoma of the small bowel. [/QUOTE]I hope that it is just stage I and that you respond well to treatment.

[QUOTE=R.D. Silverman;325808]I now have a more exact diagnosis based on a PET scan and genetic tests.

I have mantle cell lymphoma of the small bowel. A colonoscopy/biopsy
is next. Exact treatment has yet TBD.[/QUOTE]If it's any consolation, my mother-in-law had bowel cancer. Surgery was effective and she lived for years with a semicolon.

She survived several cancers, in fact, and lived well into her 80's


Paul

[QUOTE=xilman;325820]If it's any consolation, my mother-in-law had bowel cancer. Surgery was effective and she lived for years with a semicolon.

She survived several cancers, in fact, and lived well into her 80's


Paul[/QUOTE]

The cancer is not bowel cancer. It is cancer of the lymph nodes.
It is just that the affected lymph nodes are located adjacent to my
small intestines.

And mantle cell (look it up) has a highly variable, but generally not
very good prognosis.

[QUOTE=R.D. Silverman;325822]The cancer is not bowel cancer. It is cancer of the lymph nodes.
It is just that the affected lymph nodes are located adjacent to my
small intestines.

And mantle cell (look it up) has a highly variable, but generally not
very good prognosis.[/QUOTE]Ah, OK. I need to do some more research.

As you can tell, I'm not up to speed on things medical.

R.D., I wish best of luck with the treatment. If your medical center does genetic testing (of the malignant cells), hopefully they would be able to use the latest association therapies. One would wish the personalized medicine was already here, but it is only entering the scene; however in some cases, it makes great difference. There appear to be ongoing trials, too, hopefully, you will be able to get into one? Best wishes!

[QUOTE=Batalov;325826]R.D., I wish best of luck with the treatment. If your medical center does genetic testing (of the malignant cells), hopefully they would be able to use the latest association therapies. One would wish the personalized medicine was already here, but it is only entering the scene; however in some cases, it makes great difference. There appear to be ongoing trials, too, hopefully, you will be able to get into one? Best wishes![/QUOTE]

I'm being treated at Dana Farber in Boston.

[QUOTE=R.D. Silverman;325827]I'm being treated at Dana Farber in Boston.[/QUOTE]

I hope you get better, I've looked up a little about it on wikipedia (you probably have me blocked but I still hope you get better) it appears it's a NHL involving B-1 cells and the Cyclins for anyone interested, as to specifics about the condition I could only take guesses.

Bob, you are in my prayers. You no doubt more than anyone realizes that statistics are just that, and that each outcome is a new and independent opportunity. You can be (no, will be!) one of the winners of the battle.

What was that project you had been working on to construct a huge non-Mersenne prime? As I recall, it had a long time left to run, and you've got to be around to write the journal article when it finishes! Not to mention handling crank patrol around here... :max:

[Mods: Perhaps the posts relating to Bob's diagnosis and ongoing treatment ought to become a thread of their own?]

Ttime to fix the shingles
 

Like most everyone of my generation, I caught chicken pox (or chicken spots as we called it just to be contrary) as a kid. Several decades later the virus has re-awoken and I'm now in some considerable discomfort with an outbreak of shingles.

Luckily I trotted off down to the emergency medical service yesterday (my GP doesn't work weekends) to be told that I'd turned up early enough for antivirals to be effective. So I'm now swallowing 4g of aciclovir daily, along with copious quantities of analgesics. Further, I'm not allowed to go to work or to have saunas, the latter being a particularly severe restriction, for fear of infecting others.

Ho hum.

[QUOTE=xilman;326113]Like most everyone of my generation, I caught chicken pox (or chicken spots as we called it just to be contrary) as a kid. Several decades later the virus has re-awoken and I'm now in some considerable discomfort with an outbreak of shingles.

Luckily I trotted off down to the emergency medical service yesterday (my GP doesn't work weekends) to be told that I'd turned up early enough for antivirals to be effective. So I'm now swallowing 4g of aciclovir daily, along with copious quantities of analgesics. Further, I'm not allowed to go to work or to have saunas, the latter being a particularly severe restriction, for fear of infecting others.

Ho hum.[/QUOTE]

The terrible thing is that, even as late as my own childhood (born in 1982), parents often *encouraged* their kids to get together with other pox-riddled kids in the neighborhood, in hopes that everyone would get the pox and be done with it at the same time. They even had a name for it, the "pox party"! Little did they know what they were setting the kids up for 40 or 50 years down the road...

Shingles is nasty business, but it is good that the antivirals look like they will be effective. Not being allowed to go to work is always a nice perq, though I recall reading about your enjoyment of saunas, so that's a bummer.

It's interesting how seemingly innocuous childhood diseases become downright vicious to adults. For some reason, it was decided by the luminaries at the US Centers for Disease Control that all of us '82 babies could skip one of the vaccinations in the sequence for measles, mumps, and rubella, basically the measles shot. So I grew up without a measles vaccination. No biggie until my junior year of college at age 19, when I suddenly came down with the worst illness that I had (and have so far) ever endured. For seven straight days, I had a fever of 104-106°F, chills, pounding headache, and a lovely itchy rash that broke out in the *ahem* "Netherlands", and worked its way from there to everywhere else. No kidding, no exaggeration, if I attempted to get out of bed, my legs went out from under me. I honestly wondered if I was going to survive. The really crazy part was that the doctors drew blood and tested for everything from diabetes to Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, yet never thought about measles...because most babies are vaccinated...except for us '82 models. We never did get a straight answer, but based on their own childhood experiences, my parents figured that I probably had measles. Kinda scary to think I could get them again...

Interesting factoid: the herpes virus is related to shingles, and in fact, a herpes outbreak can actually induce severe shingles. Basically, all of these things work on and via the nervous system, creating neuralgic pain wherever they feel like it.

Hope you feel better soon, Paul. :smile:

[QUOTE=xilman;326113]Like most everyone of my generation, I caught chicken pox (or chicken spots as we called it just to be contrary) as a kid. Several decades later the virus has re-awoken and I'm now in some considerable discomfort with an outbreak of shingles.

Luckily I trotted off down to the emergency medical service yesterday (my GP doesn't work weekends) to be told that I'd turned up early enough for antivirals to be effective. So I'm now swallowing 4g of aciclovir daily, along with copious quantities of analgesics. Further, I'm not allowed to go to work or to have saunas, the latter being a particularly severe restriction, for fear of infecting others.[/QUOTE]

That happened to me nine years ago. The breakout occurred while I was traveling for work and as I didn't know what it was didn't get treatment for it until I got home. Fortunately for me the breakout was not on my face, which happened to my father-in-law, but on my backside. It was painful to sit down for a few days until the medication got it under control.