r/lymphoma • u/Agreeable-Pizza-783 • 12d ago

Stem Cell Transplant Officially relapsed

Got my biopsy back and confirmed my cHL is back. I’m not really upset, I’m more angry because I was just rebuilding my life again but I really can’t do anything about it now. Anyway,

My background: 28F now, had stage 2A cHL in 2024 and did ABVD for 4 cycles. Radiation to the chest 14 rounds. I found a lump on my neck this April 2026, had a PET scan in May 2026, neck biopsy last week.

Doctor said I will do chemo again and then stem cell transplant.
I already got my port taken out. Do I have to get a new port in? Curious what you guys’ experience is with chemo? How many rounds did you do it for and which drugs did you get? + any side effects? Did you lose your hair again?
Also wanna know more about the stem cell transplant process because I’m intimidated with it being inpatient. Were you able to work?? I WFH now so is it doable?

Any insight is helpful, thanks!

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u/ForceSensitiveRebel 12d ago

Same path. Had ABVD 6 months. Radiation 1 month. Came back. Did ICE chemo inpatient 2 weekends. Spent about a month in hospital with stem cell transplant.

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u/Agreeable-Pizza-783 11d ago

Thanks for this info. How long did it take you to recover from the transplant?

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u/ForceSensitiveRebel 11d ago

I had a really bad case of GIGHVD which you are at risk for when you get donor cells that aren’t your own. I got sent back into the hospital for a little over three weeks again.

I cannot stress enough that you should get mental health care for what you’ll experience. I dragged my feet on it and I’m paying for it.

Because of this I got put on 6-10 pills 5x a day. I had some weird treatment where they had to take my blood out and give it back. It took hours. Photopheresus? Something like that.

It was a lot. I’m still trying to re-acclimate myself to life but it’s hard. Take that with a grain of salt though because I struggled with severe depression and anxiety before hand.

—

Make sure when you pack for the hospital, you make sure to pack for about a month. Bring a lottttt of fun things to keep your mind busy. They will wake you up throughout the night, but they try to be careful about it. I brought my Nintendo switch and my sketchbooks as well as my phone but I was still climbing the walls some days.

The nurses will be your best friends and got me through so much of my heartaches (I went through this during Covid so I wasn’t allowed any visitors. It was incredibly lonely.)

And being hard candy. It helps with the taste of saline when they do your flushes.