Through the looking glass: Filipinos riot over a halfsie

Lost may be my favorite tv series of all time.  I loved watching each episode and going, "WTF?!  Where are they now?"  One episode comes into my mind which kinda gave me the inspiration to write this new surprise blog.  The season 3 finale "Through the Looking Glass" if any of you remember had a scraggly looking Jack screaming at Kate that they have to go back to the island.  That was the first time in the series that had an episode show a moment in the series' storyline that was at the present time.  Lost?  Gotcha!  That moment started my complete obsession with Lost because I had so many questions and I was getting so confused that Lost was now showing the past, present, and future all in one episode.  Many of you have found out that as of tonight, 5/23/2012, I have a complete perfect match for my allo stem cell transplant.  I'm sure a lot of you have questions on my current treatment, why it's so hard to talk about the emotions I went through during my first couple treatments, or on why I am so comfortable talking and joking about me dying.  Hopefully this blog could shed some light onto that.  As I change it up and blog about what is happening in the present. 

Wait this isn't Phillip Phillps?  Its also not 1999.

Wow, that was a very horrible introduction to the blog.  I wanted to make it sound dramatic like how the beginning of Lost is.  I think it's everyone here at my in-laws watching American Idol and I'm constantly complaining how unimpressed I am with Jessica Sanchez(Who I've been calling Jessica Rodriguez for almost 2 weeks.)  If you gonna be a Mexipino, you gotta look hot, and have the attitude.  Jessica Sanchez looks like a below average filipino and is just eeeehhhh to me, If you wanna see what good looking Filipinos look like, check out my friend list!  But also check out Lidia and her friend list, you add in some of that Mexican with a Filipino and you get holy crap! :)  See how this damn show distracts me?  Congrats to Dave Matthews Jr to winning American Idol 34.

Some people have personally texted me that they are proud of what I'm going through and so happy that the treatments went well.  Honestly guys, I consider those treatments a complete failure if I'm still going through the fight now.  Its been an up and down nonstop 16 month battle with cancer.  Its come to the point that I envy those cancer patients that have had a few years of remission because, they've lived their life and had a break to recover.  I as of this moment, am mentally, physically, and emotionally drained.  Everything I have been blogging about has been nothing but an absolute failure and a very vivid horrible memory.  That's why its so hard to talk about it because I remember every moment of it and I still feel the pain and suffering i had to endure, but it compares nothing to what I am going through now and what i will be enduring in the very near future.  It has been a complete nightmare for Lidia and I since the end of March 2012 and finally today some light has been shown.

Last week, I finished my 2nd cycle of R-EPOCH.  Let me tell you, if I thought R-CHOP was a bitch R-EPOCH is like one of those ghetto girls that just don't quit in the club.  This time around, each chemo cycle was almost one week long IN THE HOSPITAL!  I had four 24 hour continuous chemo bags, and when that was done one 15 minute bag of cytoxan.  Funny how a drug has the word toxic in it and it's suppose to help me.  I was a complete zombie after this junk.  Shoot, I still feel like a zombie now.  I also started radiation today on my neck.  This time around I didn't need any tits :) placed on my neck because a mold was made of my face and I get to wear something similar to a giant old school Jason hockey mask that already has the markings on it there.  Today I had a huge day at Loyola University Medical Center in the 'Wood,  I talked to my psychologist today, yes I have a psychologist because I almost tripped off my balcony in April.  When I say tripped, I mean almost jumped.  Now before any of you text or call me, let me swallow these 10 vicodin first...I'm just kidding about the vicodin part,  but yeah I've hit the threshold of how much emotional bullshit I can withstand and back then I was highly considering it.  Problem is, I really am a pussy when it comes down to it because when I looked down, ehhh let's just say it was really "cold" outside on the 11th floor.  Now that it's out in the open that i seriously considered killing myself,  if I have called you in the month of April, I was really trying to say "goodbye" to you.  Don't worry family and friends, I'm perfectly fine now, not taking any meds which I'm proud of and I wouldn't harm a fly.  So that was that meeting, then I had my meeting with my onco doc Dr. Smith.  Everything looked perfect, except I still have a tiny problem swallowing and my throat still hurts, eventually as reassured as usual by Smith, would go away.  Since I started radiation earlier in the day, Smith recommended that R-EPOCH was to be canceled because I had such good success (or failure) with radiation.  The tumor was now only localized to my throat coiled around my esophagus.  Which means, my PICC line was taken out today!!!!  Oh man, I might have to reserve a future blog just on how many damn central lines I've had and my horrors with them.  So, PICC line out: check, not crazy: check, started radiation: check, and Smith gave me the news I have been waiting for.  I originally had 3 matches and these people could be from anywhere in the world.  They stay anonymous until a year after the transplant.  If they decide to reveal themselves at that time, they could.  But Smith told me they have finally found a donor who accepted.  26 year old male from God knows where, but again perfect match!!  Many of you have read my FB update that I would go above and beyond to find him after a year and repay him with lots of paid intercourse.  Hey, guy to single guy gift, that's perfect don't judge! :)  If he's married, I have alternatives, if he's gay I also have one specific alternative.

Now I really haven't differentiated to the masses what an autologous and allogenic stem cell transplant is.  The stem cell transplant in my opinion is the oncologist saying "Oh shit, nothing else is working lets give them the old transplant."  Both are very dangerous, lengthy, painful, and mentally draining procedures.  But the Auto is safer since its your own stem cells and it's protocol to always go with the safest first then an Allo.  The only time an Allo is used first before is patients with recurring Leukemias.  So, without getting into detail, I've had an Auto stem cell transplant in January of this year.  You have a couple rounds of chemo to shrink of the sucker, then you're stem cells are harvested through an aphresis machine.  Once they have the targeted number of cells, they put them on ice and for a week blast you with the most intense, most horrible, God awful, sweet Jesus chemo to get rid of any of the cancer that is left, and to weaken your immune system.  Your immune system needs to be weakened so when the stem cells are reinfused back into your body, its like jumping a car battery.  So my immune system basically was rebooted.  Now this may sound like sugar and spice and everything nice, but this entire procedure messed me up.  I had to go through a massive workup on tests and labs before the transplant, needed another bone marrow biopsy, needed another stinking line put through my chest wall.  This was after the 3 rounds of chemo I went through every 2 weeks which put me in the hospital for several days.  Then I was given that God awful high dose chemo,  I had a Foley put in me the very last day of chemo...and for the first time in my life, a medical procedure made me cry in pain.  When the stem cells were infused, my blood counts were horribly low, you're monitored daily to see if your white blood cells, hemoglobin, and platelets were dropping and boy did they plummet.  White cells were as low as 0.1 with the normal range around 5.  That meant if I got an illness, I'd possibly croak, My hemoglobin was super low, no hemoglobin means oxygen cant get to your organs, you croak.  Platelets were at like 10, normal range is 150 and above.  No platelets mean you start bleeding you cant stop, you croak.  I had a nose bleed for 10 hours!  Jeesh, last time i pick my nose! haha!  Slowly for a month, you recover.  You're put on isolation for over 2 weeks after the procedure.  I was fully recovered in march of 2012 after over 2 months of complete hell.  This ladies and gentlemen...is the easy stem cell transplant, and it failed me like hiring a crack addict to babysit your children for the night.  My tumor grew back in 2 weeks after I was cleared to travel,  and it grew back fast, that's when I started acting crazy. 

Although I'm very happy to find a perfect match for my allo transplant, let me give off some medical facts, there's a 20-30% mortality rate with the procedure.  Don't know how accurate that is but it scared my feces out of my butt.  Everything I've read with the Allo was risk this danger that.  There's a reason why this stuff isn't given to people over the age of 60.  All my Auto SCT was done out patient except for the week of the High dose chemo which destroyed me and I was in the hospital for a week.  For an Allo SCT, I will be in the hospital for one full month then 100 days of isolation.  Same procedure as the last, I begged my onco doc and the transplant nurse that no bone marrow biopsies were to be performed and no chemo was to be given that required a Foley.  I seriously begged, and I almost cried, a guarantee was not given.  I flat out refused to have another transplant.  I even went to houston to THE #1 cancer center in america check me out.  During April, I thought I was going to die.  I've learned to accept my fate.  And every single moment I'd think about my family, I'd lose it emotionally, even to this day.  I cry, because I realize I don't have enough pictures of Daniela and I together.  If I pass, she's not going to know who her father is.  I didn't do enough to be a prominent figure in her life.  She's going to be calling some greased up Puerto Rican Papi.  Then Lidia's gonna start dressing like jennifer lopez. Ooo, I'd be so pissed if that happened.  Who was going to take care of Lidia and Daniela?  Who was going to support them.  My family and friends, when people say don't give up, keep fighting, last year I'd go psssshhh while making a lewd back and forward motion with my hand and wrist.  I thought this was all easy stuff.  I was young, my body could take it.  But recently, I lost hope, I did not want to live, I was ok with dying.  But thinking about how much I would miss out if I would die at 28 or 29, I couldn't afford to do it.  I was telling a coworker of mine, there really is a will to live that you can actually turn on and off.  If you give up, your body will shut down.  I turned my will back on...just think Rocky 4 when Rocky is training to fight Ivan Drago, that motivation to go out and kick someones ass was the same for my will to live.  I believe in it now...I need to steel my body, mind, and soul with everything I've got because I literally have 4-8 weeks before the dance.  Now all of you know that I'm in preparation for the absolute fight for my mother fucking life.  But don't worry, I got this...plus I still need to write about what happened last year and go into more detail about this year. :)

Jessica Sanchez was robbed?  She just needs a new face.  

The Lord of the Cancer: The 3 Laser Zaps

My R-CHOP chemo was complete and i was so happy and excited to be done. But most important, I was returning back to work at the good ol VA! I was basically off from work mid January-mid June, with a couple weeks working here and there January and February. I was extremely rusty with work but just like riding a bike, eventually you'll get it. The great thing about working in the medical field is work does not skip a beat if you are on leave. So while I was getting chemo, I worried for a couple days how work was but then realized just like life, it must go on. So honestly, I definitely did not think about the stresses of my job. It's not like I really stress at my job, I kinda just sit back and laugh at the people who really do stress about everything. :) But it was great seeing my co-workers and my patients again. One of my patients even told me he had a running bet with another patient if I was to die or not. (I could put that in my blog right? No names = not breaking HIPAA regulations haha!) I definitely missed work and was glad to be back.

Way too much free time at work....

My next step in my treatment course was to have radiation. As with any unknown territory, I was extremely nervous about getting radiation as I heard from others who went through it that it was very painful. "It's like a bad sunburn. Your skin is going to peel. It's gonna hurt like hell." So I thought to myself, "Great, is there anything that I'm gonna go through that isn't painful? Why can't they have medicinal marijuana for cancer patients in Illinois? I sure would love to feel 19 again. Oh well."

My radiation oncologist was Dr. Bahman Emami. I looked him up before meeting him and found out this guy was consistently considered one of chicago's top docs. Cool! This dude is gonna cure me! Radiation was starting to sound easier and easier as the days were counting down to my consultation. The end of July 2011 I had my consultation with Dr. Emami, and in walks this oompa loompa looking guy. Lidia and I look at each other and I just shrugged it off. But the moment Dr. Emami started talking, he had this weird, introverted, I haven't been out of my house since the cold war type of humor. He was nice and friendly but definitely a very odd fellow. He talked about my treatment plan and that I would need radiation 5 days a week for 4 weeks. I was like holy crap, I just got back to work, how am I gonna manage this? He reassured me radiation was very quick and I would need to come back the next day to start the prep phase as I was to begin radiation the following Monday. I came back the next day, and the radiation tech made a mold of my torso as I would get radiation only in my chest. The way radiation works, it's basically a highly concentrated X-ray. You know how you have those water hoses and at the end of the nozzle you can turn it to make it spray or shoot out. With my understanding that was very similar to how the radiation rays would hit my body. I needed tattoos marked on my body so the techs would know each time where the machine would have to point. Before the lady tatted me up, I asked her if she specialized in any Chinese or Japanese artwork and if she could tat my daughters name on my arm or chest. She laughed and said that it was just gonna be a simple tiny dot on my sternum and on my sides. I was bummed because those were my first 3 tattoos. :( So those that know me REALLY well, I'm the biggest pussy in the world. As I got my first dot tatted on me, I jumped and yelled out. The radiation tech chick looked at me and said, "Oh...." Yeah my reputation was already ruined.

My Last day of radiation 8/30/2011

Monday-Friday throughout the month of August 2011 at around 3:30pm I would come into Loyola radiation oncology outpatient center for radiation. I would be done at 3:40pm....I know right? 8 minutes of changing and 2 minutes of radiation. I would lay down on my body mold and the radiation techs would align the machine with my tats,(I had to constantly correct my iPad because it only recognized tits not tats.) and ZAP ZAP ZAP! I was done! The best part was, I wasn't sick, I didn't feel pain and I was getting stronger everyday. It came to the point that I was getting so strong that after radiation, I was able to go to the OPRF track daily and start jogging. While I was on chemo, my onco doc put me on steroids so I blew up like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. So I needed to work off all that extra bloat as my wedding was coming up. It was also really nice to get out and start walking and jogging to clear all the stress that was building up the past 6 months with everything that was going on dealing with having cancer, feeling horrible that I wasn't able to take care of Daniela, and that Lidia and I were getting married in September.

Chillin at the taste!

Finally I thought to myself, the worst is over...my fight has concluded. My life can FINALLY continue after a major giant roadblock was set in our way. I cherished every moment I had with my family, and had a great summer. The days I felt strong, Dani and I would go driving around, I would walk her in her stroller, take her to the mall as much as I could. I would walk past the Disney store and cover her eyes so she wouldn't see what we were passing. The 2 of us also went to the taste one day and I was afraid I wasn't able to make it because I was afraid to be in giant crowds.(after going through treatments, and your blood counts drop, someone sneezing or coughing will freak the living crap out of you.) But going to the taste was a great experience for Daniela and I. While chomping down on a turkey leg, a group of ladies were next to me and one approached me and looked at me up and down. I thought she was gonna say something about my cancer because I was completely bald at that time but she looked at Daniela and started smiling. Now if some big black lady stares at you while you're eating a BBQ turkey leg you're gonna assume she's hungry right? But no, she comes up to me and goes, "oooooooo yo girl is sooo beautiful! What kind is she?" I didn't know how to respond because if I was to answer her correctly, she would get insulted if I said human. But I followed up, "I'm Filipino and my fiancee is Mexican." "Mmmmmmm-mmmmmm, beautiful..." was what she responded as she walked away. I had to get away because I really was convinced she was hungry and gonna turn Daniela into a giant lumpia and/or burrito.

Sorry bout the complete subject change but I'll always hold that memory dear to me, even though it was before radiation, that's when I started feeling my life was back to normal. That's all I wanted while going through cancer. My life to return to what it was in 2010. Now that I was finished, my onco doc told me I finally had a break and my next PET Scan was in October. I didn't care about it, it was now September 2011 and I was to marry the love of my life.....

The Lord of the Cancer: The Fellowship of lymphoma

So I kinda named my whole trial with my disease after the Lord of the rings because honestly it totally reminds me of that movie series.  I remember when the fellowship of the rings came out and I was like, "This is one long ass freakin movie!  Frodo's not in Mordor yet and it's already hitting the 3 hour mark!!"  That's when I realized it was a trilogy.   That's how I can best describe this bullshit I'm going through, because it's long as hell, and it feels like there's no end in sight.

As I lay in the hospital bed listening to the oncology service team headed by Dr. Michaelis, explain to me what Diffuse large b-cell non-hodgkin's lymphoma is, the only thing going in my head was, "Damn, I have mother fucking cancer.  What the hell happened to me?"  I had so many unanswered questions,  "Was I going to die?  How much is my life insurance?  Fuucck, why didn't I increase it to the max when I was going through orientation 3 years ago??!!  Hmmm...Oh well, Lidia and Daniela are gonna be so rich when I die.  Shit...She's gonna find and marry a Puerto Rican like Miguel Cotto!  He's a lot better looking than my fat cancerous ass.  Wait a minute!  This asshole's gonna take all my money!!  If he does, I'm gonna haunt the living crap out of him."  These were the few of many questions/statements racing in my head as I found out my diagnosis.

First PET scan taken in February 2011.  Anything dark colored is highly metabolic.  Cancer is highly metabolic.  The dark spot on top is my brain and the dark spot on the bottom is my bladder, don't mind those.  But look at the whole shebang!

Basically, Non-hodgkin's lymphoma is recently of the past 10 years one of the most common cancers out there.  Unfortunately there's a bunch of subtypes of NHL.  Mine was Diffuse large B-cell meaning it only affected the B-cell lymphocytes.  For those not familiar with the body systems, B-cells and T-cells are part of your immune system that fight off infections and viruses.  Maybe when I'm feeling better I can get more in depth on how exactly b cell lymphoma attacks your body.  Nah, I'm just lazy right now. :)  So anyways, when I had my CT and PET scans, i had multiple tumors all over my body.  I had one in my throat, a HUGE ass 10x17cm tumor in my chest cavity, and 2 tumors on my adrenal glands.  To also include, I had pleural effusion in both lungs meaning the outer layer of the lungs had fluid in it, and pericardial effusion, the same goes for the heart.  I was to immediately start R-CHOP chemotherapy.  R-CHOP stood for Rituxan, Cytoxan, Vincristine, Doxorubicin (my favorite because it's called the red death), and Prednisone.  Have no idea where the H and O come from but I guess R-CHOP sounds better than R-CVDP.

I honestly had NOOOO idea what to expect.  You never really pay too much attention to cancer unless you have it or personally know someone very close who's fought it.  I've had some family friends go through it but seeing how they recover, I thought it wasn't so bad at first.  I thought to myself, "Hmmm, this isn't so bad, I don't feel that sick."  Who was I kidding, this stuff was like gang rape in prison led by your prison roommate Leroy.  What people usually don't see is the struggle they go through after chemo.  Especially after the neulasta/neupogen shots to increase white blood cell production.  How I see it is at the cancer center, you see us sitting in those nice chairs hooked up to IV bags of chemo, and a couple hours later we walk out like everything's all good.  Then after a few more hours when the stuff is really in your system, Boom!  You get hit hard with a truck.  You feel like shit,  I don't know how to describe it but it's a very yucky feeling, my face was like rubber, I'd try to smile but it looks like I just had a stroke.  I was very fortunate to not have the nausea, vomiting, and not a lot of diarrhea.  But boy did I have the rest of the symptoms.  Especially from the Vincristine.  That drug gives off Peripheral Neuropathy, which is absolute complete numbness of your hands and feet.  I begged my oncologist to take it off but he looked at me like I was high on coke as he explained to me the importance of combo chemo drugs.  But the feeling of my hands and feet gone drove me crazy.  To make it worse, the numbness lasts....for months even years...and as I type this I have to delete a lot of things or else my blog would look like this.  I haveeer cancerr.  Gets annoying after awhile.  It also sounds like what Carlos Mencia makes fun of all the time.  Which I don't want to offend anyone cuz I think I may have upset someone in the past who put a curse on me.  So whoever it was....I forgive you and I'm sorry......but please lift this damn curse off me!!!! ;)  

PET scan in June 2011...Looked pretty good!

Anyways, back to after chemo, I try to keep my struggle to myself.  I don't want people seeing me have difficulty moving around, because they would automatically feel sorry for me.  I didn't want anyone to feel sorry for me because I knew if I kept going and trucking, I was gonna beat this(foreshadowing.)  But there were times I would be really weak and some people would see me break down.  Especially Lidia, and it hurt me so much to have her witness me break down and show her I cant do this because I know how much she's been having to deal with everything and everyone knowing she JUST had a baby.  To deal with all the fatigue, weakness, and pain, I'd just lie down and sleep.  All the physical therapists and MDs keep telling me to move around, exercise, it'll make the pain go down, I say hell no, I'm just gonna go to sleep.  You tell me how it's like to have pain on your ass, hips, and legs at the same time.  This would honestly last for one week.  My first cycle was all done in the hospital, because I had to get my PICC line inserted, then they had to monitor me for a couple days.  But the other cycles were done out-patient and done in  just one day.  The cycles were every 21 days.  After the 2nd cycle, I felt a lot of relief from my chest and throat, and I thought I was cured by the 3rd round.  But I had to complete 6 cycles of chemo.  So I went from March to June 2011 without working while going through the intense chemo regime.  It was a long long process  and I had another PET to see where I was after chemo.  Low and behold, all the tumors were gone, my neck, the adrenals, and the just a small small smidge left in my chest.  So what was next?  I needed radiation.  I felt like the finish line was in reach...I had HOPE.......  

For those dealing with cancer or taking care of someone with cancer, I have some advice...It's not happy good advice.  It's real advice from someone that's gone through the gauntlet a little too much.  Hope is a double edged sword...just like our freaking Bulls...If I think I'm cursed with cancer, the whole city of chicago sports is cursed.  Damn Rose, Noah, Cutler, Cubs you blow...Why do I keep going off topic?  I must be tired...Anyways, a lot of people have been texting me about advice for someone they know that has what I have or another form of cancer.  And there's a lot of you, and I saw thank you for letting me into your private lives and helping you with the healing process, but my main advice is, hope is both a good and bad thing.  Don't hope so much that this will be a quick cure.  Everyone is different, some people go through a couple cycles and are good.  Some take years, some like me get the whole freaking kitchen sink thrown at them.  But it is all a struggle, struggle to survive, struggle to live a normal life.  Most of the time, the person going through it will not let you know how much they are struggling.  Dealing with someone who has cancer is an art form.  When to back off, when to listen, when to help, when to become emotional.  Its hard to juggle all of that and having someone you care for be really sick.  It's difficult for the person going through it all having a massive influx of people concerned can also be really overwhelming at first.  But then again, some people will take it differently, I'm completely basing all this on my own experiences.  This is weird talking about all this stuff that's already happened to me in the past year.  It's like an episode of Lost, when they fuse past, present, and future into one episode.  It's like me writing all this, I'm trying to write about the past, but get stuck in the present and will write about the future...seriously there needs to be a movie about my life.  If this was LOTR, right now, this would be the end of the fellowship.  And I think that's all I can write for now.  Thanks for taking time to read this and understand just a small part of what I and others have to go through.      

Me after the biopsy 2/2011.  Always trying to stay positive when the world is crashing down.

 

How it all began

Well, gee...I have a lot of catching up to do. For those that know who I am, I'm writing this blog in may of 2012. But have been fighting cancer since February of 2011. You can say I was a little lazy to start this blog and tell everyone my story, or that maybe I wasn't ready yet to go into full detail about my immense and tiresome fight with cancer. Well, I have a little time now, and I guess I'm finally ready to share to the world about the biggest fight I've ever endured in my existence.

Just to let everyone know, I loved smoking. Oooh Lord, nicotine was one of my best friends, and if I could, I'd have a cigarette stand in my wedding. Ok I wouldn't go that far but it's a good example on how much I love smoking. I've been smoking probably since I was 17. There was a certain group of friends who introduced me to smoking back in high school, they know who they are and the funny fact is, I still consider them my closest friends. Haha thanks for almost killing me you assholes. Haha honestly, smoking had nothing to do with it. But I will write another blog on exactly what I think triggered my cancer another time.

Yes if it wasn't for smoking, I would have never realized what was wrong with me. You see, my beautiful wife Lidia was 9 months pregnant with our daughter Daniela. Back then Lidia was my girlfriend, so Daniela, if you ever read this you were born out of wedlock! I promised Lidia I would quit smoking before Daniela was born, but I couldn't stop. I remember January of 2011, my health was deteriorating. I was feeling sick, horrible, and I kept coughing. The day before Daniela was born on 1/11/11, I was at work, Lidia called me and said she thought her water broke, and the ob-gyne told her it was time to go to the hospital. Naturally, I freak the crap out and have a cigarette, but little did I know, that was the last cigarette I ever had. I rush to our apartment and line the front passenger seat with blankets stolen from work because I didn't want to get amniotic fluid on the BMW. We arrive to the hospital safely and a few hours later, Lidia was in labor....for 18 grueling hours. The very next day on 1/12/11 our daughter Daniela rose Evangelista was born and it was the most joyous moment of my life. I promised Lidia and Daniela I would never ever touch another cigarette again, which I still hold true until today and for the rest of my life.

They say after your last cigarette, your body goes through changes, after 12 hours, the blood o2 levels return to normal and the CO levels decrease. A month later your energy increases, your lung function improves, and shortness of breath decreases. Buuuuut....for some weird reason, the whole month of January going into February, I felt sicker and sicker. I thought to myself, why am I still coughing up a lung? Why am I always so tired? Why can't I sleep at night? And why am I sweating so much? It never really dawned upon me that something was wrong, I thought it was because my lungs were trying to clear themselves of all the crap that was in there, plus the stress of being a new father, I thought it was all related. Until a family party, and I started coughing up blood everywhere really opened my eyes. I made an appointment with my doctor the following day and saw her within the week. She ordered a chest X-ray, and I received the results on valentines day that I had a massive mass on my mediastinum. At that time Lidia and I were meeting with our wedding coordinator because we were getting married later that year in September. I excused myself from the meeting to take the call from my doctor and when she told me that news, my whole body sank. I feared the worst, that I had cancer. It explained everything. My doctor immediately set me up with an oncologist she knew at Loyola. Within a couple days I was in Loyola, getting more tests, week after week it was test after test after test. From CT scans, to PET scans, MRI of my brain, ultrasound of my balls, heart echo, biopsy of the tumor, including the dreaded bone marrow biopsy. Almost 3 weeks of testing drained the living bejesus out of me. I was tired, I wanted answers. The stress level of not knowing what was wrong with me was killing everybody including myself. My oncologist, Dr. Scott Smith had me admitted when all the testing was done. I remember leaving my apartment and giving daniela a kiss as if it was the last time I'd see my almost 2 month baby, and it tore my heart to shreds. At the hospital, my anxiety levels were through the roof as i finally saw the dorctor. I was diagnosed with diffuse large b-cell non hodgkins lymphoma. And I remember like it was yesterday. The date was 3/3/11, and I was to begin the fight of my life....