Background

My name is Jennifer.  In late August of 2007, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Over the next few months I went through chemotherapy with the ABVD drug combinaton. I had 8 treatments given once every other week.  My last chemo was the day after Christmas, the day before my 26th birthday.  A few weeks later I had a CT scan and was told that there was no sign of the cancer.  Then I started radiation therapy to my neck and chest.  I finished that at the end of February 2008. 

I had my first daughter in November 2008 and my second daughter June 2010.  Having two children, and breastfeeding both of them, made it somewhat hard to fit scans into my schedule.  I had a scan before becoming pregnant with my second child in late September of 2009, which was cancer free. 

Then I finally had another CT scan done the first week of October 2011.  The doctor called me the same afternoon and said that the radiologist had seen a mass.  As a person who has had cancer...that is the last thing that you want to hear.  I was trying to be optimistic at first since the doctor said that the mass measured 5mm.  I was thinking it could be scar tissue...anything but more cancer.  A few weeks later I talked to my oncologist, and I don't know if I misheard the first doctor or if he misspoke, but I found out that the mass was 5cm and was pressing on my lung and had actually caused a partial collapse.  So, I was sent for a PET scan, also know as a cancer scan, on October 31.  I received the results later that week and was told that my PET scan was positive...or I have cancer...again.  I will be having a biopsy on one of the masses, as well as on my bone marrow on November 17th.  And thus begins my second round with cancer.....