I can’t speak exactly to Freds condition, but I can talk about two people I have known personally who have had NHL. One was my late wife. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992. In August 1996 she was told she was cured. In May of 1997 she woke up one morning and couldn’t stand up. At the oncologist office she was told she now had NHL and it had spread rapidly throughout the lymph system, she died in September.
The second person was a friend of mine who was diagnosed with NHL while serving in Bosnia. He came home, was treated for 3 years and was told he was cured. 6 month later he died.
Does that mean Fred has the same type of NHL or that his disease will progress in the same manner, no, and I hope for his sake and his family’s that it doesn’t. But I am afraid, based on my own experiences I don’t put much stock in doctor’s prognoses when it comes to NHL.
Your second account shows your .....how can I say it tactfully....your imagination.
No oncologist would ever tell someone with NHL that they are ‘cured’. There is no cure.
Your wife had chemo for breast cancer that is specifically targeted for breast cancer. The chemo causes other cells to mutate and the result for breast cancer patients is the development of another type of cancer with 5-7 years.
Each of us develop about 2000 cancer cells every day and they are kept in check by our immune system. When women undergo specific chemo for breast cancer their immunity is lowered allowing other cancer cells to grow or spread.
Going back to your friend, if he was initially diagnosed at a later aggressive stage of the disease then intensive chemo can arrest the disease and cause it to go into remission but it can come back more virulent than before. If caught in early stages of the disease then the aggressive form will never develop as long as the person has the right genotype and is treated early.
FDT has an early form that is slow-growing. He is one of the fortunate ones.