Impatiently Waiting

So it's going on six weeks now since I had the surgical biopsy of my eye.  By tomorrow, I will have completed my two weeks of the doxycyclene antibiotic treatment.  It has been a pretty uneventful week and a half.  I'm tolerating the antibiotics fairly well... they just make me a little queasy in the mornings, as I am supposed to take them on an empty stomach.  It's hard to tell if they are having any effect on my eyes.  I am still seeing swelling in the mornings, especially in my right eyelid, but I don't know if that is still residual from the surgery.  


Other than that, physically, I'm feeling great.  My eye is pretty much completely healed from the surgery.  Though I am "healthy" and capable physically, I decided not to return to work for these past two weeks that I have been taking antibiotics.  I thought it would be way to stressful to come back to my classroom and try to pick up the pieces after having been gone for a month, then have a two-week break (our school is on a modified year-round schedule, so the whole school is off from 10/4-10/15) and then start my Rituxan treatment on October 18th and be gone again.  It would be way too disruptive for my students as well.  Teaching requires so much of me mentally, emotionally, and physically, that I know I wouldn't be able to do my job well right now, and still have the bandwidth to focus on healing.  I thought it best to just sort this all out first and then go back to work once I kick these health problems to the curb. 


As lovely and relaxing as it has been having this downtime, I am starting to grow a little impatient as I wait.  Once I've completed the antibiotics tomorrow, I have to wait TWO MORE WEEKS before we can see if it has had any effect on the tumors.  I have an MRI scheduled for October 12, and a follow up with Dr. Vempaty on the 14th.  At that point we will determine the next step.  If the MRI shows the tumors are unchanged, then we will begin Rituxan on the 18th, as scheduled.  If the tumors are visibly smaller, well, then things could get interesting.  


I know the chances of that are so slim, but there is a part of me that feels like it COULD happen.  Another component that makes it more plausible in my mind, is that about two and a half years ago, I had an unexplained illness for several weeks, where I experienced symptoms (fever, chills, fatigue, cough) that are common to chlamydia psittici (though I have no idea where I would have contracted the infection).  Still, the timeline is interesting, in that soon (maybe 6-12 months) after this unexplained illness, I developed the symptoms in my eyes which led to the lymphoma diagnosis.  Could that unexplained illness have been chlamydia psittici, and if it was, could it have triggered this lymphoma?  Seeing that so many other things about this case are so unusual (my young age, bilateral involvement--meaning both eyes are affected), I just am feeling like I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss that possibility.  


Yet, it is one thing if the lymphoma was caused by the infection, but entirely another if the antibiotics prove to be effective treatment.  Apparently, this type of treatment has only been successful in very few cases in few parts of the world, mainly in Italy.  If the antibiotics work on me, I really don't know what will happen next.  I know that my oncologist, Dr. Vempaty, has never treated anyone this way before, and I wonder if she has any idea of the protocol for how to administer this.  A good friend of ours who is also a doctor suggested that we ask around and find out who IS the expert on this type of treatment (probably one of these Italian doctors), and encourage Dr. V to get on the phone to Italy.  Who knows, hopefully she already has put in her own research.  I'm sure she will have many of the same questions as I have:  What will happen next?  Will I have to repeat the antibiotics?  In how long?  How often?  Will this put my cancer in complete remission?  How often will we need to scan?  What are the chances for a relapse?  Our doctor friend also told me that if it does work, I should prepare myself, as there will probably be a lot of medical interest in me.


Alas, here I go, furiously spinning my wheels into deep hypothetical mud.  This is one of the problems of having too much time to sit and think.  It's just so frustrating to not know what the next step is, and having to just WAIT.  I want to know what my course of treatment will be.  I want to know when I will return to work.  I want to know how this will all affect the other, parallel medical issue of my impending surgery to remove my ovarian cysts.  I am very much an organizer and a planner, therefore, I find this lack of control both frightening and unnerving.  Yet I know I need to let it go.  A dear friend recently sent me a little laminated sign that reads, "We make plans, God laughs."  I have it hanging right next to my computer as a gentle and comforting reminder that I am indeed not in control, and I need to trust in my faith, and know that I will be taken care of.