Friday, August 27, 2007

Dear colleagues/friends,

Thanks for your thoughts and encouraging words over the past two weeks. Just wanted to offer a long-overdue update on what's up with me...

In short:
I’m doing fine and am in very good spirits. Hospital gave me my walkin' papers on Wednesday and I am back at home in Frankfurt. The doctors’ diagnoses are in, the first treatment kicked in like wildfire, the road map for further treatment is set, and all prognoses are promising.

The full story:
Fate decided I could use a little adventure. For this, it called on follicular lymphoma – a cancer of the immune system, clumsy dancer and rather unpleasant guest at dinner parties.

So it goes.

Once the good doctors at the University Clinic of Frankfurt had diagnosed it, they put me on a wonder drug treatment that promptly whooped the bad cells from a count of 190k down to 96k. Latest count, after my first jam session with chemo, is 2,000. Docs were so satisfied with this strong remission that they even toned my treatment plan down a notch: I’ll be in same-day-service chemo every three weeks (rather than every two) for a total of six sessions. From there, it’s on to monthly doses of the wonder drug that knocked out the lion’s share of abovementioned bad guys. That’ll serve fate right and keep the willies in check. All things considered, I got off light. Better people have faced worse fates and come out as rosy as I will. My own prognosis: 100% chance of recovery, sunshine by day, lucky stars by night, every few weeks partly cloudy. Going forward, I am heeding the good counsel that so many of you have offered and listening to my own common sense: I’ll be easing back into the swing of things – i.e., spelling "Health" with a capital H; "work" with progressively larger Ws, and "clouds" with great big silver linings :-)

Onwards,

Chris