For example, if you were to inhale a particle of flu virus, your B lymphocytes - white blood cells that are part of your immune system - would recognize the virus as foreign, triggering the lymphocyte to transform into a plasma cell that would make an antibody to the virus. Lymphomas often develop from the misfiring of natural immune processes. “Not only was I lucky enough to get it,” he says dryly, “but also I got it at an earlier age than normal.” Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia is twice as common in men as in women, more common among Caucasians, and typically emerges in the mid-60s. Also called lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma, it was lumped with multiple myeloma until 1944 when the Swedish physician Jan Gosta Waldenström described its uniqueness: increased viscosity (thickness) of blood as a result of high levels of a large protein, which is known as immunoglobulin M (IgM).

Only about 1,500 cases are diagnosed in the United States each year - about 2 percent of all blood cancers. The tests revealed Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia, which is a rare cancer of the lymphatic system. “I tend to have nosebleeds, but not like I was having at the time.” Chastened, he called the number - a hospital hematology department - and before long was booked for more extensive blood work, a bone marrow biopsy and a PET scan. “Maybe it’s just sinuses,” he had thought. “It’s really important you follow up on that,” he recalls his doctor telling him.ĭeNardis realized later he’d been downplaying his nosebleeds and generally rundown feeling. “I didn’t follow up,” he confesses, until his doctor called back to check on him. He gave DeNardis a phone number, which he, of course, ignored. In 2003, during a routine check on Peter DeNardis’s blissfully quiet Crohn disease, his gastroenterologist noticed something off in the bloodwork. A blood test, biopsy and PET scan later revealed Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia.

PETER DeNARDIS ignored his doctor's first recommendation to be checked out.

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