Cancer again with a different Gordon

Well, this is hard to comprehend but we are back to the fight again. This time not with Val, but with Sam.

Back in the middle of October, the family got together to celebrate my Dad’s birthday. At that gathering, Sam mentioned he had some tightness in his face and a little stiffness in his neck. The symptoms got worse over the next few days which prompted a visit to Urgent Care. They thought it was a viral infection and would clear up on its own. Over the next few days the swelling increased and he was noticeably uncomfortable.

A visit to his Primary Care Physician was scheduled for the middle of the following week. At the visit, the Doc ordered up an ultrasound of the neck to get a better picture of what may be causing the swelling and stiffness. Trying to get that ultrasound scheduled sooner rather than later was a challenge, but he successfully got on the schedule for the following week. He didn’t make it to the next week before the symptoms got much worse. He woke up on Saturday, October 25th to increased chest pain and swelling. His wife Grace, wisely encouraged a trip to the ER. When you enter the ER with chest pain, you get everyone’s attention pronto. During that process, he underwent a CT scan, and a large mass was found in his chest cavity sitting on his heart.

Now that we had that figured out, it was time to get some insight into what we were dealing with. Three main tests were scheduled; a CT scan of his entire body, an echocardiogram of his heart, and a biopsy of the mass. The first two happened no problem, getting the biopsy scheduled with Interventional Radiology was a bugger. He never made it to the biopsy before another trip to ER.

On Monday, November 3rd his neck was very distended with very pronounced swelling in his face. We were getting good at figuring out this whole ER admission process, so back he went. Another CT was done specifically on his neck, and a “no kidding” large blood clot was found in his jugular vein. That situation is what got him admitted to the hospital on Monday.

The biopsy we waited for finally occurred on Thursday of this past week and the results came back yesterday as primary mediastinal b-cell lymphoma.

Treatment will start with chemo, specifically for you medical types it is R-EPOCH. This will be administered over the course of a week and then have two weeks off. There will be a total of six rounds of chemo with PET scans at the halfway point and also at the end.

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Things to pray for this coming week:

1.) That Sam handles the start of chemo well.

2.) That Sam, Grace and the rest of us have strength and peace.

3.) That we don’t waste this opportunity to glorify God and make us more like His Son!