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!
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