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Lymphoma

People's stories

Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma (low grade)

Interview 18

Interview 18

Age at Interview: 58
Sex: Male
Age at Diagnosis: 51
Background: Marketing Manager, married with two adult children. Ethnic background: White British.

Brief outline:Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma diagnosed in 1998 after shoulder pain and finding a lump. Two years of watchful waiting then three bouts of drug treatment, with short remissions in between. Now in longer remission after receiving radiolabelled monoclonal antibody.

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Explains how often he saw his specialist during 'watch and wait' and what happened at those appointments.
Print So at the very beginning when you were on 'watch and wait' how often did you see your consultant in that time? It varied between six and twelve weeks over a couple of years, the same routine each time would be a bone marrow, sorry a blood test, which then enabled them to check my bone marrow from what they were seeing in the bloods I guess, and just a physical examination, a chat, how did I feel, how was I coping? I was introduced to Macmillan nurses several times during these interviews, which I thought was actually very good because when I later went for the treatment the same nurses who I'd met were involved with that as well. At one point I was also taken up to the chemotherapy room so I could just see where I was maybe going to have to end up, got to know the procedures. And, but they, again they became a matter of routine. And the hardest part was sitting in the waiting room, just waiting to go in. And I'm fortunate I've had a very good haematologist who was very understanding, very approachable, and obviously over seven / eight years of meeting him regularly he's become quite a friend in many respects, and the doctor-patient relationship is kind of blurred a little bit because he knows of my interest and I also have done some charity work and things like that, so he tends to keep me informed about things that he may have heard and frequently will ask me if I've heard anything new that I can tell him.

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