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Hi to all!
First of all I would like to thank the creators and all the participants of the forum as here I found a lot of answers to my questions.
I'm 33 years old, I live in Minsk, Belarus.
My story began in 2015 when I was diagnosed with Ph + chronic mieloid leukemia. Fortunately, thankfulto the modern medicines, such as Tasigna, I achieved the excellent results Minimal residual disease (MRD).
In October 2016, I started feeling a continuing pain in the chest. I associated exclusively with the trauma of my sternum due to the procedures of taking samples of bone moss. The pain did not leave and in November 2016 I was sent to the CT of the chest. a tumor with a size of 5x8x3 cm was detected by CT at the mediastinum. It was assumed that it was a thymoma. No other anomalies were revealed. I was sent to conduct a thorocoscopy and take of the tumor sample. After the surgery the surgeons explained to me that everything looked as a dilated thymus, and as usually in their practice they do not take a thymus biopsy, but remove it all. The surgeon assured me that there was no sprouting and adhesion with the nearby tissues. Three days later I was already at home.
Two weeks later the results of immunohistochemical analysis came - seminoma. Shock. I passed the oncomarkers (bHGC, AFP, LDH), and all the values were normal which confirmed the initial diagnosis. Nothin was found in my testicles except little hydrocele on both. From December 2016 to February 2017 I went through three courses of BEP chemotherapy and this is the worst thing ever.
Since the first course of BEP chemotherapy up to now my palms and feet started to sweat heavily. The cough that began after the first course of BEP was not getting away for more than 2 months. Any pain caused panic in me. According to the results of PET-CT in March 2017 everything was alright and nothing alarming was found.
In May and August Two more CT scans did not show anything suspicious. In September I again started to have a dry cough, almost without expectoration. And this cough is not like pneumonia. Initially, I tried not to pay attention to it as something similar to me happened right after chemotherapy. But so far it still remains and more over I started to experience burning pain behind the sternum, to the left and to my right. Also there was an easy sweating of the left half of the head (forehead, temples, neck). My LDH ~ 147 (125-250) and CRP 0.2 in the blood slightly increased lymphocytes (which it was before the diagnosis of the seminoma).
Tomorrow I have again a CT of the chest. Therefore I have a couple of questions to ask to the Forum community while I am able to clearly express myself.
1. Is that possible to develop a relapse with such aggressive symptoms in a such a short period of time?
2.Which scheme of chemotherapy would be more justified in case of relapse for me? (I have chronic mieloid leukemia)
I would like to mention that in my country there is no treatment without knowledge, no specialists specializing in germ cell tumors. There is no at all HDC application in the protocol of GCT, but I've seen its application while being treated for CML, there is TIP and VIP. I am asking this as it will be only my decision in case of relapse.
I know about Dr. Einhorn and I am planing to contact him, but only in case of confirmed relapse.
Thanks to everyone who read my post till the end.
First of all I would like to thank the creators and all the participants of the forum as here I found a lot of answers to my questions.
I'm 33 years old, I live in Minsk, Belarus.
My story began in 2015 when I was diagnosed with Ph + chronic mieloid leukemia. Fortunately, thankfulto the modern medicines, such as Tasigna, I achieved the excellent results Minimal residual disease (MRD).
In October 2016, I started feeling a continuing pain in the chest. I associated exclusively with the trauma of my sternum due to the procedures of taking samples of bone moss. The pain did not leave and in November 2016 I was sent to the CT of the chest. a tumor with a size of 5x8x3 cm was detected by CT at the mediastinum. It was assumed that it was a thymoma. No other anomalies were revealed. I was sent to conduct a thorocoscopy and take of the tumor sample. After the surgery the surgeons explained to me that everything looked as a dilated thymus, and as usually in their practice they do not take a thymus biopsy, but remove it all. The surgeon assured me that there was no sprouting and adhesion with the nearby tissues. Three days later I was already at home.
Two weeks later the results of immunohistochemical analysis came - seminoma. Shock. I passed the oncomarkers (bHGC, AFP, LDH), and all the values were normal which confirmed the initial diagnosis. Nothin was found in my testicles except little hydrocele on both. From December 2016 to February 2017 I went through three courses of BEP chemotherapy and this is the worst thing ever.
Since the first course of BEP chemotherapy up to now my palms and feet started to sweat heavily. The cough that began after the first course of BEP was not getting away for more than 2 months. Any pain caused panic in me. According to the results of PET-CT in March 2017 everything was alright and nothing alarming was found.
In May and August Two more CT scans did not show anything suspicious. In September I again started to have a dry cough, almost without expectoration. And this cough is not like pneumonia. Initially, I tried not to pay attention to it as something similar to me happened right after chemotherapy. But so far it still remains and more over I started to experience burning pain behind the sternum, to the left and to my right. Also there was an easy sweating of the left half of the head (forehead, temples, neck). My LDH ~ 147 (125-250) and CRP 0.2 in the blood slightly increased lymphocytes (which it was before the diagnosis of the seminoma).
Tomorrow I have again a CT of the chest. Therefore I have a couple of questions to ask to the Forum community while I am able to clearly express myself.
1. Is that possible to develop a relapse with such aggressive symptoms in a such a short period of time?
2.Which scheme of chemotherapy would be more justified in case of relapse for me? (I have chronic mieloid leukemia)
I would like to mention that in my country there is no treatment without knowledge, no specialists specializing in germ cell tumors. There is no at all HDC application in the protocol of GCT, but I've seen its application while being treated for CML, there is TIP and VIP. I am asking this as it will be only my decision in case of relapse.
I know about Dr. Einhorn and I am planing to contact him, but only in case of confirmed relapse.
Thanks to everyone who read my post till the end.
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