After a wonderful week just spending time as a family of four, we have started down the path with treatment. We met with our oncologist Dr. Henry G. Kaplan at Swedish Cancer Institute in Seattle.

So, here is what we learned at the doctor tonight. First, Dr. Kaplan is amazing. His bedside manner and confidence are truly inspiring and he told Anna she was super pretty. We felt really comfortable and confident his care. We are in the very beginning and more testing will refine the treatment plan but here is the overview:

There are six types of Hodgkin's Lymphoma, 1 bad and 1 very good, and 4 middle of the road.
The 1 bad and 1 very good are both very rare, the 4 other are by far the most common
Everything below is based on the assumption of Anna having one of the 4 common types, to be confirmed next week
Pet CT scan will be scheduled for early nest week to clarify staging and if/where the cancer has spread from Anna's neck
Anna had a chest x-ray and there is evidence of spread to the chest, more info after Pet CT
Probable treatment is 6 months of chemo, no radiation.
12 doses, given once every 2 weeks for 6 months
Chemo side effects are exhaustion, hair loss, and possible nausea for several days after each dose
All chemo will be given via surgically implanted port in Anna's upper chest and done in office hopefully without any kind of hospitalization.
Chemo type is ABVD (name of drug cocktail)
Prognosis, although limited in scope of knowledge, is very good.

Some other great news is that the Doc indicated that Dexter wont need to avoid contact with peers (ie preschool) which we had anticipated as a possibility due to germ exposure.

We will be scheduling scans and further testing tomorrow and we think that all testing will be done by the end of next week and we should be starting treatment shortly there after. We will also have a long term treatment plan in place by then.

We are feeling really positive after our meeting tonight and both feel like we are moving down the road towards being healthy.