Follicular Interview

The Boston sports radio station WEEI, along with the Boston sports TV station NESN, have been holding a telethon this week to raise money for Dana-Farber and the Jimmy Fund -- the same organizations that are benefitted by the Pan Mass Challenge.

The two stations have been interviewing lots of cancer patients, doctors, fundraisers, etc. during the telethon, and one interview involved a Follicular NHL patient (Kevin Rose) and his doctor (Arnie Freedman).

You can hear the 12 minute interview here, but I'll give you a couple of highlights:

Kevin's experience was similar to mine: a lump, clearly a swollen node, that wouldn't go away; a doctor who tried antibiotics first; an eventual fNHL diagnosis. The big difference: he went through three needle biopsies, instead of a full, remove-the-node biopsy. As his experience shows, needle aspirations just aren't reliable for fNHL, and for other types of lymphoma as well. The lymphoma cells don't take up the entire node, so it's a literal shot in the dark that you'll find what you're looking for. Still, it was interesting to hear him describe the process.

I like that Dr. Freedman described lymphomas as either "curable" or "pre-curable," since we're getting closer to cures for them. (Not, like, 5 minutes away closer, but we're getting their.) Follicular is in the "pre-curable" camp, of course.

I liked Dr. Freedman's enthusiasm about Rituxan, and about the great changes it has meant for fNHL patients in terms of survival, longer remissions, and quality of life.

I liked Kevin's description of getting the Rituxan -- he'd receive a bag of it on Friday mornings, and then go back to work for the afternoon. The radio hosts (Mut and Merloni) teased him about going back to work. They thought he should have just gone home for the rest of the day. I'm with M & M -- I went home and slept on those afternoons.

Overall, a very hopeful and enjoyable interview. And a very successful telethon, too.