Very First Post

Hello all,

So I have been telling people that I was going to start a blog for Josh to track his journey and keep people informed, and I am finally getting around to it. My goal is keep everybody as up to date as I possibly can. So here it is, let me catch everybody up with what has been going on.

It all started Christmas day; Josh wasn’t feeling well and really hadn’t been feeling well for most of December. As we were driving to my parent’s house he found a pretty large lump on the left side of his neck, later that evening he was not feeling well at all. He went to the doctor the following Tuesday, the doctor thought it might have had something to do with his thyroid and put him and antibiotics, which didn’t work. The following Tuesday he had and ultrasound, and they found it to be a black mass, the following week he had a core biopsy, which led to the diagnosis of follicular lymphoma. Follicular lymphoma is the most common of the indolent non-Hodgkin's lymphomas, and the second most common form of non-Hodgkin's lymphomas, but it is usually found in people in their sixties and seventies, so Josh is kind of a rarity.  He then did the bone marrow biopsy and PET scan, which is needed to stage the cancer. The bone morrow biopsy came back negative, which was very good, and PET showed that the cancer is throughout his lymphatic system but is nowhere else in his body, which is also good. So with all the tests complete, Dr. Chen diagnosed Josh as having stage III follicular lymphoma. So now that that is all of that out of the way, Josh will start the chemotherapy treatments Monday. The type of chemo that will administered is called R-CHOP. I don’t really know what to expect, but Josh and I are prepared for some pretty grueling months ahead.

Thank you thank you thank you for all the prayers (I believe they are working) and support, it feels like we have an enormous army standing behind us. As scary as all of this sounds I truly have a sense of peace and I believe everything will work out just fine. Until next time…… xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo