There are a few things you need to know before you jump into my story. The first is that I have changed the names of the doctors and nurses in my story to protect the guilty and innocent. Sorry family and friends, I used your names. Now, to be honest, this isn’t much protection. I teach librarians; I work with librarians; librarians are friends of mine. It would take a good librarian about 10 minutes to chase down most of these names and places and that’s only if they stopped for a latte first.
The book itself is broken into three sections roughly covering three phases of my treatment:
- Diagnosis: the trip leading up to my eventual diagnosis with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a cancer of the blood/immune system. It was not the straightforward path you might expect (or that I hoped for).
- Treatment: the first round of chemotherapy when I was convinced I was curing my cancer.
- Transplant: the story of my autologous stem cell transplant with accompanying chemo for my refractory cancer (in other words, when the first round of chemo wasn’t enough).
I would love to add a section 4, the “Happily Ever After” section, but as you will learn throughout this book, cancer doesn’t ever really have an end date…just a not yet date. But I am getting ahead of myself.
The last chapter of each section is a reflection in the form of a one-sided conversation. The reflection seeks to outline what I hope folks can take away from my story.
The next thing you should know is that the book is a cross between a memoir, a textbook, and a case study. I lived through the events, and my memory is the primary source for the narrative. However, I have also used the copious treatment notes kept by my wife, my own journal, my blog posts, and medical records to fill in gaps and nail down the timing of events.
Also, for the OCD among us, I use the term “Hodgkin’s Lymphoma” over “Hodgkin Lymphoma.” I’ve seen it both ways by reputable sources, so I picked one. I suppose it may be unfair to ascribe my illness to a dead English guy, but any book about cancer is ultimately not well framed in the context of fair and unfair.