This Is What We Do

Stepping off of dry land. Back we go, into unknown waters. Molecular studies have been done on the cancer cells from my lung from the 2004 recurrence. Hi-tech/Sci-Fi print-outs of the make up of the enemy. A lot of information about the enemy. Recognisance run in a lab out in Arizona. We now have a better idea of what the cancer that roams around in my body may or may not respond to. It is fascinating. It is frightening. Such a resistant little devil, is the cancer, to most chemo agents. But not to all. One new name pops up that I have never been on. Some old names come back as surprisingly ineffective when we know it is not so. The real direction of the study, the deconstruction, seems to be hormonal manipulation. Something that was discussed in San Antonio this past December. Something Maha and I had talked about. Something we are going to try.

I seem to be the perfect candidate for this new course of attack. But it will mean stepping away from the chemotherapy and trusting a new theory of re-introducing the enemy to the one thing it craves the most....estrogen. Then we will snatch away the "candy" from the cancer and hit it with an aromitose inhibitor. Stop all the estrogen cold turkey. And like a reformed alcoholic who has fallen off the wagon and been drinking for days on end, when we remove the bottle, take away his precious source of addiction, we hope he (the cancer, of course) will have withdrawal so, so bad, that he just shrivels up and dies. Interesting approach, don't you think?

When I was standing in the office with Maha and chewing on all this stuff, I just kept trying to grasp the concept. Something new. Something that won't tear my body apart bit by bit. Something that will not require an IV infusion once a week. Something that won't make me feel like my bones are on fire, my tongue is splitting in half, my hair won't stay or food tastes like metal. Something different, exciting......scary. So I looked at her for a good 15 seconds. We just stood their looking at each other, nothing more to say. Just the unspoken understanding that I finally put words to. "Well," I said. "This is what we do."

She and I, Maha and Kathy, we will try anything and everything to keep the monster at bay.
I know without a doubt that she always has an ear out for what is new, what may help me, what the next step might be when needed. And she knows that I will be a willing partner, that I will believe in what she believes in when a new treatment starts.

So we are off on another adventure. We are stepping into unknown waters. We are excited, yet cautious. But our hearts are the same, our hopes are the same, and our dreams are the same.
How did I find a doctor like this??? Whenever you doubt about the perfect plans of God. Let me remind you about odd couple at 216 Asheville Ave. The devout Christian patient and the devout
Muslim oncologist. Eight years of standing beside me. It's perfect proof of a perfect plan.

"But those who plan what is good find love and faithfulness." Proverbs 14:22