1st day of Blog

Not sure what to write, I never wrote a blog before, yet I do have a caringbridge site for my husband David Denn. He was diagnosed with a very rare cancer (especially in adults), called Pleomorphic Rhabdomyosarcoma. First of all a little about Dave, he was 39 when diagnosed and lives in Hagerstown, MD but his hometown is Walkersville, MD, but also spent a few years in Canton, GA before meeting me and us buying a house in Hagerstown.

1st of all he doesn't look like the atypical cancer patient, he is 6ft 2 and 300 pounds, but he also has been pretty much positive about everything (he is more worried about the economy along with facing this terrible disease) then the disease itself.

Now a little about this cancer and how this mess started. In May, 2008 Dave went to his physician Dr. Gough in Walkersville, MD because he had a lump in his left forearm. Dave thought it was a torn muscle, which we found out that it wasn't. He was sent immediately for a mri scan and a few days later we were given the news they were almost sure it was Pleomorphic Rhabdomyosarcoma (cancer of the soft tissue). We were sent to see Dr. Robert Henshaw in Washington DC, at the Washington Cancer Institute at Washington Hospital Center, and he was an Orthopedic Oncologist. We were a nervous wreck not knowing what we was going to be told, as anyone can imagine. They pulled out a "big gun" which was used to biopsy his arm, Dave said afterwards that it hurt like hell, he didn't want me to be scared, so he didn't tell me until later. They also sent him for many various tests: Pet scan, CT scan, another MRI, and I am sure more. Then again a few more days later we returned to DC for the results and was told that he had Pleomorphic Rhabdomyosarcoma of the left forearm, size was approximately 9x12 cms (very large) and it was too large to operate and that they wanted him to see the Oncologist specialist there Dr. Dennis Priebat in the same building, just one floor up. We were also told there were a couple of spots in his lungs as they called them nodules, but they didn't know what they were so they were going to watch them.

Again more tests, EKG, hearing test, muga test, nuclear stress test, various blood tests to see if his body could take chemo and also as a baseline for future testing to see if the chemo is damaging other organs. Then he was scheduled to have a port (groshan) installed to give him his chemotherapy for. Due to the seriousness of the chemo and the cancer we were told he had to have the chemotherapy done in DC, which is a 1 and 1/2 hour drive each way minimum depending on traffic, and Dave hates the city.

His first chemo he was hospitalized on July 3rd, 2008 and released on July 6th, the regimen of chemo he was on was :

Vincristine
Doxorubicin
Cyclophosphamide

Another term they used was VAC. He received this every 21 days and then after 3 cycles was again given a MRI and CT scan which showed minimal shrinkage, so they then decided to change his chemo to VIC, substituted one of the drugs for Ifosfamide. He received this chemo again every 21 days for 3 more cycles, again it barely did anything. Note: no changes to the spots in his lungs - no growth or shrinking or new nodules

They decided at this time it was best to schedule the surgery so again after some more testing, he was scheduled for surgery on November 19, 2008.