What a day! Today was the first day of chemo for James and by the grace of God, he flew through it!!

Again, he is going through the ABVD regimen so that meant four different types of chemo. He will do 6 Cycles which each consist of two treatments, so twelve treatments total. So today was officially Cycle 1, day 1 and we will go back in two weeks for Cycle 1, Day 15… and so on until January 30th. The doctors are very watchful on the first day and make sure there are no allergic reactions (especially for the B medication). We got there at 10am and left around 5pm.

We met with Dr. V, our oncologist, and got confirmation that the Hodgkin’s Lymphoma is at a Stage 2. This is what was causing the mass (or tumor) in the mediastinum. We are SO thankful that this was OUTSIDE OF THE LUNGS and not inside (as I said in my last post, that would have brought things to a Stage 4). His bone marrow biopsy came back clear along with the rest of his tests from Friday. Praise God!

Anyways, we had a day full of laughter and firsts. This man of mine is a champion. He was even standing at one point during the chemo treatment cuz he got tired of sitting!!!

He is taking the nausea medication as a precaution and we are home now resting. He even ate a FULL MEAL right when we got home! All in all, from the horror stories I had read online I was extremely nervous going into today and we both feel so much better having that over with.

Some prayer requests:

No nausea or other nasty side effects.

No bad dreams (this one is a request for me, I had way too many nightmares last night with the anticipation of today. Haven’t woken up in tears since the beginning of my pregnancy!)

Continued ease through treatment for James.

Complete Remission by Cycle 3. They will do a second PET scan in two months and are expecting the HL to be in complete remission. Then we will finish the final cycles as a precaution. We will also revisit the idea of radiation should the mass have left any scar tissue.

We have a special announcement that we will make later this week, but for now it’s time for some movies and jello! (The jello is for me LOL).

The scripture reading that we are standing on today is below. Learning so much about the battle of our MINDS. Thankful that the Word of God is mighty to the pulling down of strongholds!!

XOXO

Natalie