I can't help but agree with this

http://westandwiththe99percent.tumblr.com/post/11429341524/i-am-a-two-time-cancer-survivor-i-get-to-have

 

A step in the right direction

Yesterday was a big step forward in the fight for cancer survival. The short story – the primary tumor is dying, and that is something to celebrate!

 

The details are somewhat more convoluted and certainly messy to sort through. Phase I trials are what they are, an early step based a lot on a hypothesis and not so much on experience in other patients. We’ve got some models, and some mice and that is about it. This makes the milestone above a little more difficult to navigate and accept whole heartedly. After all, Interferon was supposed to be a win, a success, a finally, so my ability to hope is now tempered by logic. This creates a struggle between the statements of “hoping in the Lord” and “claiming that I’m healed” both of which I hold to, and believe. The summary below is thus more so an academic concept of next steps, because well the research is kind of neat.

 

Victory one is now behind me, the drug has cause the tumor to become neurotic (dying from the inside out).

Step two will be to see signs of decay in the second tumor. For both me and the drug company this will be an even more the significant win.

Step three will be to have both tumors completely gone either by drug or by surgery.

Step four is being “NED” for a very long time. NED meaning No Existing Disease

 

So the science behind all this is like this.

Step one – inject the drug into the tumor and see if it’ll kill it. This has been done before in prior patients, but not with a synthetic such as I received.

To get to step two, your immune system has to step up and get involved heavily. While the drug may be accelerating the death of the primary tumor, to get the second tumor to die, you need to have your immune system take what it has learned in the battle with Tumor A and go and apply it to Tumor B. That’s the true win. If the immune system can leave Tumor A and go looking, find and kill Tumor B and anything else, then you have a systemic win where your body is now fighting off all the cancer without the need for additional drugs.

 

Now for the politics:

The clinical trial was written for three cycles of the drug, essentially three injections with a predefined testing routine. It has worked for a prior patient in a slightly different study, who has now come to the end of the three cycles. Her next step is? Well, she doesn’t know because no program extension has yet to be written. Do you stay on the drug cycle, if so for how long? If the first tumor dies naturally, should you inject the second in order to speed/improve the autoimmune response and thus better the chances of destroying unseen particles floating in the blood stream? Hard to say, since um, no one has done this before.

 

Alas, I do look and realize that life is by no means a destination, but the journey on a road travelled. It seems that lately I’ve been off making my own road, and I would rather like to rediscover the road less traveled and enjoy it with my beloved wife.

 

Random Thoughts - Hiring your own protestor

The US, heck the world is awash in protest these days. Everyone is extremely pissed at something or other, and so people show up to voice their support. The Wall Street protests are continuing and apparently spreading, and I must say some of what they espouse hits home (while other parts of me root for the cops with pepper spray.)

 

These protests bring up an idea. I want to be involved in certain protests but I’m busy, you know WORK, and what not gets in the way of me camping out at XYZ protest. So I’m thinking I could hire a protestor to go for me. What with all the out of work people in America, I’d be generating a job, and likely creating a long term personal benefit if said protest effected the change. I see it as a win, win. All you’d need is to set up a matching website that links protestor to “employer”. The technology in phones these days would allow an employer to validate the protestor’s location at the appropriate time and then pay them. I’m sure someone could even come up with an app for your phone so it’s all in one!

 

The only flaw to this is probably the political balance of it all. Too many protestors on the left, too many employers on the right…

First World Problems

I get melancholic and all woe to me now and again. Then I read shit like this on a melanoma support group and remember I’ve got it pretty damn good still:

 

“I think our main objective is keep him alive with a good standard of living at least until our baby is born in February.”

 

If I had to give an update, well a “blank” would do just as well. I’m on the phase 1 trial which I’ve started to refer to as “saving monkeys” and we won’t know anything for another month or more. The experts are just as helpful as having a bb gun when a black bear is coming your way. Increasing tumor size means either it’s getting bigger because the drug is working (grow then cave in on itself – necrotic) or well it’s just getting bigger… seriously, and you went to school for how long?

 

The exciting part of the battle right now is pre-planning the funeral arrangements, not because I’m going to die, but because the lawyer told me to. It will keep mom and Cat from arguing at that point in time, which thankfully I won’t be around for. There is some seriously funny stuff out there. I’m still laughing about the thought of putting my ashes in a life sized model of my head and sending it home to Mom. Poor dad sitting on the couch watching TV with me looking back at him would be priceless. Yes I do have a sick sense of humor but you’d have to know how dad and I think.

Wow

http://www.finerminds.com/consciousness-awareness/charlie-chaplin-inspirational-speech/

 

Finer Minds is a group in which a dear friend from my days in AIESEC helped develop. Their blogs are amazing as are the people that work there. The video imbedded in this post is truly worth watching and pondering.

Statistics Lie and I'll survive

As most of you have heard on Facebook I’ve been “promoted” to Stage 4 Melanoma, which carries some pretty pour survival statistics, like 10% in 5 years, 3% over 10. However, I’m not certain that the statistic means anything. Why?

1. I not only choose, but know God is on my side. To that end, he answered prayer last night and we found out we’re pregnant!

2. Statistics Lie

The graph above depicts what I’m talking of. See, the stats above, their based on standard of care, and if you’re only getting a standard of care at Stage 4, there must be some underlying problems that I don’t have. The game now is to get into the right clinical trial which looks more like the middle line, and maybe even get into that top line, where even the statistic can say F#ck U Cancer!

Why do we do it?

I'm sitting here at work, wondering why I'm here. The answer of course
is for no reason other than they give me a paycheck, one which seems
smaller these days, and has no hope of getting bigger. That 90k MBA
isn't going to pay off here, not at all. The newest trick to tighten the
belt, the company president needs to approve all CapEx, and all new
hires. So that 10k scanner I need that I'll lease to the customer with a
40% markup, yep that request goes to the president to be approved.
Silly, but by golly we'll hit our numbers! Forget hiring anyone for a
support position.

I'm horribly apathetic these days. Cancer knocked the happy out of me in
many ways. It just all seems so trivial what I do here at work. I want
to be doing something grand while I'm here. I'm lobbying to be a stay at
home dad, or maybe becoming a college prof. Life needs to be more than
figuring out how we can leverage human being to meet Wall Street's
irrational expectations. To that end, I'll be done my MBA in a very
short time, and feel I'll need to explore despite great loyalty to my
boss.

To keep the Cancer updates flowing, I got to do the donut scans done
yesterday and next week is the big week to consult on the clinical
trial. I'm fully past the surgery and back to "normal", and I don't need
comments on that last bit, that's why I used the quotes.