Best of the Worst Case Scenarios!

Just got home from long oncology apptment. We were beyond petrified going into this one! Worst dread in the whole three years.

Best news: NO BRAIN TUMOR, though they did see brain changes, but those are going on the back burner for now--they're not cancer or tumors. Hallelujah!

Other news: He DOES qualify for "red devil" chemo. Is that good news? Not really. Is it bad? Not really. I think we're at the Nietszche Niche: "Beyond good and evil."

He starts in two days: Thursday afternoon. We get ONE HOUR of "counseling" on how to prepare for this dramatic drug, before he receives it. Yikes! And signing consents, due to all the risks, etc.

He will be in this treatment for 10 weeks, she said, "If he can stand it that long." In fact, she said he may only get it once if it just overwhelms him.

How bad is it, he wanted to know. She said, the nausea will be manageable. That's not even the problem. The problem is the other side effects, such as fatigue like you've never known in your life, and bone pain from neutropenia, even though we give you every possible medicine to fight these effects.

So he gets to TRY IT JUST ONE time. And then they will decide if he is allowed to ever have it again.

Bill then asked a very salient question. He said we'd read that this drug has extreme side effects but that there is zero evidence that it extends life and that it is considered palliative care. ("Palliative care" means making the patient comfortable as he/she perishes.) He then said, "But we have anecdotal evidence that this isn't true. We heard from two people who had this drug, and it cured their cancer, and so why is it called palliative and non-life extending?"

She said, "What kind of cancer did they have?" He said, "Breast."

She said, "Exactly. You have Transitional Cell Carcinoma (TCC) and unfortunately (this was the scariest part of what she said) there is no known chemotherapy that cures TCC. You can only hope for remission. And there is only ONE study that shows that adriamycin [red devil] has any effect on TCC at ALL. So the chemo they're trying on you is based on only one study." Subtext: But for that one study, you would get no chemo at all [as in, nothing left to try].

So she did not deny that it is palliative. A last resort shot at another remission.

Well? Whatcha gonna do? Ya gotta go for it.

So Bill is planning to try to have the time of his life for the next two days. And Thursday, jump in and see if there are sharks and alligators. This drug is the one that, if it hits your skin, it burns a hole in it. And a lot of other stuff that I won't list, because poor ole Cowboy has to read this blog.

But, believe it or not, we are VERY happy with this outcome! We had nothing but horrible options, and this is the least horrible, so we actually are grateful! Everything's relative. As my friend Rick said, "There's nothing wrong with hope."

I'll start posting every day, beginning Thursday night, after the first "hit." The reactions build day by day over 14 days, so it will be a wild ride. After 14 days, he gets it again, if they let him continue with it.

Thank you for praying, thinking, loving, beaming, anything you did for us. It worked!

"God is great, Sabu. He plays with us." -- Out of Africa