Maria,

My aunt was diagnosed a couple of weeks ago with follicular Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. Assuming this is what they are talking about, I have had the pleasure of spending many hours finding things to read about it. Assuming this is the case, the good news is that this is one cancer that could be very slow growing and not very aggressive. I will continue with the discussion based on me believing it is fNHL as it is called.

The first step that they do with the biopsy after confirmation is to grade it. They get count on a certain number of cells and based on how many small cells versus large cells, they assign a grade. This grade will tell you how agressive of the slow growing cancer yours is. They then do PET/Ct scans and an MRI with contrast to see how many areas are affected and based on several factors, they stage the cancer and come up with what is called a prognostic indicator. Factors in a person's favor are age under 60, affected lymph nodes all above the diaphragm and, not showing symptoms, bone marrow involvement plus some specific labs to determine levels of LDH and hemoglobin. Here are a couple of links with just about everything you ever wanted to know about fNHL.

http://www.lymphomainfo.net/nhl/follicular.html

http://www.lymphomation.org/

I hope I am not jumping the gun before you know if it is what I think you are saying. My aunt was told that even doing nothing would give her 7-10 years. Many people are living 30 years after the first round of treatment! There are some specific combinations of chemo that are used plus Rituxan called CHOP +R for Cyclophosphamide (Cytoxan