Jared's Story

I decided to start a blog to just help inform people on the journey Jared will be going through over the next couple months as he gets his Stem Cell Transplant. Here is brief timeline of Jared's journey thus far with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. In October 2010, we noticed a sizable mass in Jared’s neck. At first we thought it was only due to a cold, but when the lymph node continued to grow it was time to visit the doctor. The first doctor said that he suspected it could be cancer or nothing, but that since he would not be the doctor to follow up he did not want to perform a scan… I remember leaving the doctors fuming! I was furious and I could not believe that doctor would even mention cancer like it was nothing and completely terrified me. After a scan later that month Jared was diagnosed with stage 2 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. 

Hodgkin’s Lymphoma is also known as Hodgkin’s disease and is a cancer that originates in the white blood cells known as lymphocytes. It is unknown what causes this type of cancer, but is common in men in their twenties. 

In December 2010, Jared started his first round of chemotherapy which was called ABVD (Adrimycin, bleomycin,vinblastine, & Dacarbazine). Jared did eight cycles of this chemo (2 treatments per cycle), and his body started to respond well and the disease seemed to shrink. Throughout this whole process the doctors have often commented on how tough Jared's body is, meaning that Jared is so young and healthy that it fought off the effects of the chemo to a small degree this means that the cancer was strong and not ready to go away completely. The summer of 2011, Jared did radiation to the remaining disease in his chest and neck. After a month of radiation, Monday through Friday, Jared came back to school and we thought that the cancer would not come back! 

This last November 2011, Jared went in for a routine PET Scan to make sure that no disease was back. Unfortunately, the news was not as we had hoped for. The results showed that the disease was back and much worse. Now, Jared’s disease was classified as stage 4 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, meaning that the disease has spread past the diaphragm. He had nodules on his lungs, several organs, and pelvic bone. Right before Christmas last year, Jared had a surgery to determine if the cancer was still Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.


In January 2012, Jared began his second type of chemo known as ICE (isosfamide, carboplatin, & etoposide). This was a much more aggressive chemotherapy. Jared would stay in the hospital for three days at a time and get the chemotherapy along with hydrating fluids. After 4 cycles of ICE, a scan revealed that the cancer was still not all gone. So in June 2012, Jared started the new chemotherapy known as SGN-35 (brentuximab vedotin). After 5 cycles of this type of chemo they believe that his disease is at the point where it is time for an Autologous Stem Cell Transplant. 

In non doctor talk, an Autologous stem cell transplant is when they take the stem cells out of a patient and then have them go through very intense chemotherapy to kill all of their bone marrow which is the substance in the body that produces stem cells. Then, they put the stem cells that they previously harvested back into his body. The goal is for all the bad cancer cells to be completely wiped out and then all the fresh little baby cells to be put back into to restart your whole system. This process is very scary and intense and will be happening within the next two weeks.

Jared’s next doctor’s appointment is on Thursday and we will find out the exact plan from here on. Thank you for your prayers as we go through these next couple months!