And that Concludes Cancer Week for January, 2019.

Brain cancer is...

...relieved.  

Dr. Cloughesy read Darrell’s MRI and confirmed the good news:  No changes. The left screen shows this month’s scan, while the right screen shows the last scan, from October.  Two red circles indicate the tumor resection site.  White areas at the site are, according to Dr. Cloughesy, scar tissue caused by the surgery and subsequent treatment.  Dr. Cloughesy also confirmed that all other areas of Darrell’s brain look clear.  Phew.  

Darrell and I both needed a few minutes to shed some tears of relief before walking back to the Tiverton.  The relief, this visit, palpably washed over us.  We are so grateful for another three months! We are grateful for you!

Why We Find Cancer Week Hard

For 11 weeks of 12, every day we attempt to look up.  We have our eyes on the horizon.  You know that every morning Darrell says, “It’s going to be a great day!” Most days are, literally, a walk in the park.  We say to each other, “Let’s book another trip to a great location!”  Our perspective is consistently outward and upward.  Birds and sunshine.

During cancer week, we change our focus.  We look close.  We look down. We struggle not to trip on the rough terrain underfoot.  We peek over the edge of our trail and see just how far down it is to the bottom.

The rough terrain?  Darrell has GBM.  There is not yet a cure. 

GBM is a science fiction opponent.  The next Star Trek beast should be modeled after it.   (Click here for ABTA’s latest description of GBM.)  Every one of GBM’s behaviors is driven by the goal to survive.  GBM consists of heterogeneous tissues.  (You know the rule:  Survive and thrive?  Diversify!) Largely the tumor contains brain cells—astrocytes—gone rogue.  GBM has an abnormally large, bloody supply line.  It migrates away from the home tumor site on long tentacles to infiltrate distant, pristine brain tissue.  It changes its DNA to avoid attack by the immune system.  Watch out!  Don’t lower your shields.  Don’t look up.  Stay away from the edge.

The odds with GBM are tough.  Every one of us on Team D is staying optimistic.  Look up “positive people” in the dictionary, and there is a picture of Darrell and his team. Optimistic is how Darrell lives his life:  Look up, look out.  But check out the survival rates (here).   

As an Optune user, Darrell maximizes his odds.  Given current projections, the odds of Darrell surviving four years are 19.6%.  Sure, Darrell will be among those one in five; he can’t do any more than he’s doing for his own treatment.  But saying the words, “I’m going to live forever. I’m going to beat the odds” does not make them true.  Otherwise everyone would live long lives with GBM.  Cancer week chides us; it forces us to look down. It forces us to plan.

Planning involves changing perspective.  Planning involves looking close, away from up, away from far. Planning involves making decisions about how to spend our money, how to apportion the precious minutes of our lives.  Are we making the right decisions?  Where’s the guidebook?  Is there something we should we do instead?

 

And that’s why cancer week is hard at our house.  Human eyes get tired.  They lose their ability to change focus, so as we age, we all get glasses.  Similarly, cancer week forces us to muster our strength, to stop and adjust our focus. 

We are so thankful cancer week only happens once every 12 weeks.  We are so grateful that this is the largest problem we have.

We are also grateful for cancer week itself, even though it is hard and scary.  It’s like a near-miss auto accident where the heart beats fast, adrenaline surges, and one says, “Phew!  That could have been so bad!”  We are grateful to cancer week for the few days of sobering thought about what might happen.  Nothing looks better after looking down, looking close, than looking up, and looking far.  

Let’s get back to the park!