Happy Holidays, we're giving you a bone marrow biopsy.

I got a call from our Oncologist's nurse asking us to spend Christmas Eve morning in their office for William's bone marrow biopsy. This came as a bit of a surprise to us. I talked to this nurse yesterday and she said he might not even need a bone marrow biopsy. While her opinion was contrary to what I'd read online, I was willing to grasp hopefully to it yesterday. All I was half-way expecting from their office today was a phone call to let us know what we needed to do next.

We, of course, won't have the results of the bone marrow biopsy until next week sometime but starting chemo isn't dependant upon those results. William's chemo will start next Wednesday. Before you look on your calendars, that would be New Years Eve. Happy Holidays.

We received the full and official word in the diagnosis this morning. We're fighting Stage IV Hodgkin Lymphoma. I'm sure they'll attach the letter B to this diagnosis because he's having symptoms like sweats and general whole body itch associated with the disease. Thus far everything our doctor has explained to us is identical to what we've read online.

William will begin a moderately aggressive form of Chemo beginning next Wednesday. He will receive a treatment once every two weeks for two months and then will need another PET scan and another bone marrow biopsy to make sure the treatment is making significant progress.

He feels bad, he hurts, he's shaken up by both the procedure and the surety of the diagnosis.