Hey Everyone!

I haven't updated for a long time. Maybe two years now. I have been getting request. As many of you know I started updating when I was at UCLA having my bone marrow transplant. Its been so long, that I have reconnected with more old friends and made some new ones since the last update, so I'm going to give a quick "timeline recap" that most of you can skip. Here goes:

1. Aug. 24th 2003 diagnosed with Bcell Diffuse Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Blew me away!
2. A quick "Spinal Surgery" followed by six months of Chemo and 4 months of Radiation. Clean for 6 months. By December 2004- Pet/CT showed Highlights (Active Disease). Biopsy confirmed same disease but small cells instead of large cells. That difference added the adjective transformed to my diagnosis.
3. Sent to UCLA to the Lymphomaniacs. They recommended to do a Bone Marrow Transplant.
4. June 2005 enter UCLA Hospital for an Autologous Bone Marrow Transplant. July 6, 2005 I received my own stem cells and that became my new B-day. ( I just celebrated my 4th "Stem Cell" B-day.)
5. Six months later the Pet/CT again showed Highlights. It was small and I was still very weak so it was watched.
6. We watched it grow slowly for a year and then did a biopsy. Of course it was was lymphoma.
7. Tried a maintenance drug called Rituxan and it was managing to keep it "in the box".
8. A year went by with very little change.

This is where I left off with most of you around the end of 2006.

So, it appeared from the scans that things where doing very well. Tumors

where still present, but staying small and controlled. I was enjoying life.

Physically I was recovering, and getting stronger from the transplant,

emotionally learning to live with Lymphoma, mentally the Chemo Brian was

lifting. I could almost multi task again, and spiritually I felt very connected to

my creator.

Meanwhile, my Dr. had been talking to me about trying a clinical trail. Terry

and I discussed it throughly and decided to go a head with an oral medication

that was taken twice a day. It was great.I loved

the mechanism by which it worked. It stopped communication between the B cells. If they can't

communicate they would die. Well, that is my mission statement in life! I believed that if you can't communicate, whether it be business, family, or

friends...that relationship will wither up and die. So, that added to my excitement

in starting. Yes,I look hard for excitment when it comes to treatment. I could always go back to the old drug that was working. The down

part to the clinical trail would be all the blood draws to keep the statistics needed for a clinical trail. Way too many!!!!

Well, the first Pet was so promising that I brought my Dr. a big smily face

balloon and wrote on it, " WE HAVE SOMETHING TO SMILE ABOUT" Things

looked great! That was short lived though.... The next Pet/CT was bad news,

new tumors and too much growth in the ones we had previously been watching

and I would have to be pulled off the trail. We went back to the old trusted Drug Rituxan.

Three months later it was discovered that it was only working on some of the

tumors, and we needed to now get it "back in the box". What to do now!??.... Well,

A new drug called Treanda was introduced to the United States by way of East

Germany! It was used behind "the Iron Curtain" for many years but the

mechanism by which it works is unknown. That was unsettling...but I had heard

good things about this new, old drug at an educational forum in San Francisco, so

we decided to give it a try.

My Dr. explained that I would not be able to fly and that I would need to be no

more than 15 min. from a hospital at all times while I was on the treatment, but

that he had a young male patient who just finished up and only missed work

when he had the treatment. That's my Doctor...always giving me a positive to

carry with me. I figured I would fall some where in between. That is pretty much how it turned out too.

You see this treatment was not for maintenance like the previous two years after the Bone Morrow Transplant.

It was to put the disease "back in the box" and knock it down.

My wonderful niece Sarah moved in with us to start school in Febuary. What

great timing it was! She was such a great help with Kayla and getting me to

treatments. Between Sarah and Travis, Terry only miss one day of work. Trav was able to walk into the Chemo room with his shoulders and head held high...and with eye contact ! You must

understand, the Chemo Room is a

very surreal place and not everyone can stomach it!! I was very nervous for him to have to come and get me, so when I saw him, I knew one of

my prayers had been answered! As you can imagine, this disease has taken a great toll on my family and at that moment I felt sooooo... thankful that I was given the opprotunity to see him come into a whole different space, than he had been in these last six years.

The very strange part of this treatment was that with makeup, a little effort to look presentable and long sleeves you could not tell that I was going through an aggressive Chemo treatment. Is this the future for cancer patients??? I think and hope so. With more and more progress, I do believe you will

some day not be able to recognize a patient going through cancer

treatment. They are becoming more and more cell specific. I'll never forget the day the Dean of Nursing at UCLA told me that I should think of cancer as a chronic disease. At that time I was going into the Bone Marrow Transplant and would only think CURE. I have come to realize that it is healthier for me to think of it as a chronic disease and hope for cure.

The physical journey with this drug was 2 weeks after treatment...sleep, and I do mean sleep! The next 2 weeks came with low white count so I would stay home and wash my hands a lot. Then I started treatment again. Not BAD!!!!

I guess the hardest part of this 4 month treatment was that my beautiful

freeway viens turned into thin, twisted, dirt roads. The

nurses wanted me to have another port put in. My Dr. did not agree with

them. I understand both their reasonings. After all, he didn't have to poke, poke, poke, but my white count was too low to have the minor surgery nessary to place a port. Let me just say

that if an oncology nurse can't get a vein, then nobody is going to get it!

I may be obsessing on a point here....but, let me just say here again, that I

truly love, respect and appreciate the "vein finding" talents of oncology nurses!

Was it the 6 years of treatments, or the drug (Treanda) that caused my veins to become a very unhappy, torturously confused plexus of tiny veins?!?! I found out it was

the drug. Sorry, I'm done with the veins.

I have continued to do my yoga and in the last few years have added some Qigong. For me they compliment each other so well. I also do different types of body work. They all seem to help with the physical me.

Emotional journey- You know me I have to break it down to mind, body, spirit.

By the second month the drugs where wearing me down. Thank you GOD for

supportive family and friends. I think you all know that I'm married to SUPERMAN and he is my best friend...but how much can one person take? So thank you for the open doors of the SIMMS/MANN Institute at UCLA, and the

open arms of Ines ( my oncology social worker). They always get me out of

the mud when I need it most.

Spiritually- I love my spiritually journey. Thats a long conversation. Of course I would love to be done with the other two journeys and go on with the benifits of the spiritual. Some of you know that I declared that I was going to get into the

BIBLE. It has never sang to me and really it just put me to sleep. It now actually

sings to me like THE SHACK by William P. Young and THE

NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle. Oh, I know a lot of you are shaking your heads,

but I will not tell a lie. They sing to me, just as the BIBLE does now. How did that happen? It was right

after the clinical trail failed and my mother was diagnosed with the same

disease, that I decided to try something that I had, had a very negative experience with before. No need to say why, but I was so determined to get into the BIBLE if it was the last thing I did. Thank you BSF (Bible Study Fellowship). Now that doesn't mean

that previous studies I've done have not been helpful. It just shows me that if I

open my doors and get out of my way, I will sometimes find the answers in what appears to me to be the least likely places. I know some of you are shaking your heads

again, but hey, GOD works in the strangest ways.

The good news is that the drug got the disease "back in the box" and I'm free from treatment for 3months!!! Yeah!!! I'll take it.

The plan is now to return to the maintenance drug we used before the clinical

trail....Rituxan to keep it "in the box" so to speak! I can live a very reasonable

life on it and carry on with this"JOURNEY"...Living with Lymphoma Hoping for CURE.

Now that I have a blog I will just update every so often and those of you

interested can check in and send some of your wonderful loving light through prayer. I promise to never make it this long again. God Bless you all and enjoy each and everyday the good LORD gives you. See you on the path.

Love and Light coming your way.

Monica (your Cancer treatment survivor/ cancer fighter).