the beginning

[hurtinkurt]

so i was just in having a spinal fusion done when a doc came in late at night saying my blood levels were out of wack .they did a bone marrow graph ,seen the doc 2 days later .i am diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.they caught it early but tomorrow i go in for a month stay at the hospital for chemo.i'm told treatments nowadays are not the bad anymore ..but will i lose my hair ,get sick.i noticed my teeth already staining some.is this from the illness..what can i expect......................kurt

[mariaterzian]

i had hodgkins lymphoma for 3 years and everything you say will happen but the good thimg is that whe its over you will have your hair back. Those are just tempporary things. Just stay strong.

[Mochadelicious]

Hi Kurt,
So sorry to hear of your diagnosis, but I'm glad they caught it early.  I'm not real familiar with leukemia since I had lymphoma myself, however they are very similar blood diseases.  There are many different kinds of chemotherapy used for different kinds of blood cancers.  Do you know the name of the chemotherapy you are getting?  

I had R-CHOP, which is a very common chemotherapy used with lymphoma, however I'm not familiar with common treatments for AML.  Whether on not you lose your hair and other side effects really depends on the type of chemotherapy you end up having.  I will say that currently, they have drugs that do a very good job at combating the nausea that some chemo drugs can produce.  From what I've heard, it's not at all like it used to be years ago.

My guess is they are going to do a pretty aggressive course on you since you have to stay in the hospital for a month?  Most patients have chemotherapy in an outpatient setting.  Please keep us posted and if you have any more questions I will try and help.