Lance Armstrong, blah blah blah

The two things that are most talked about by well meaning friends/loved ones/strangers are:
1. Homemade "cures" that worked for someones mother's brother's sister's friend, and
2. Lance Armstrong.

Don't get me wrong, Lance is awesome. But there comes a point in the cancer journey when so many people have said "Well look at Lance Armstrong" that you start thinking "ENOUGH ABOUT LANCE!" In truth, I'm guilty of holding Lance up as the cancer icon. We know he's the poster boy for advanced stage cancer. And there's most certainly a reason for that. The problem is that Lance is about the only poster boy that people have to hold up. And man, did he beat it. I read his book - it was great. That's one guy who was willing to do anything. Anything. And he did.

So here's the thing. Lance is the Advanced Stage Cancer Poster Boy (we'll acronymize (ooh, I'm going to get in trouble for making up my own words!) that long phrase to ASCPB) for several reasons, but after he's mentioned enough, you also get a little bitter and start thinking "Well Lance had all the money in the world to do treatments". True. BUT there are a lot of people who have all the money in the world, and they still don't make it. Case in point, Katie Couric's husband. Another ASCPB, but for different reasons.

It boils down to the fact that there are two reasons people survive cancer.
1. Their body responds to treatment.
2. They have the will to live.

Without the combination of BOTH those things, there's no making it through. For those of you that are about to get excited and say "Diet. Prayer. Faith. Exercise." I say yes, those fall under the category "The Will To Live". Either you're willing to make exceptional effort, or you're not. And it's okay for those that aren't. Either your body responds, or it doesn't. The scary thing, for us included, is that some people have the will to live but their body doesn't respond.

Lance Armstrong is a great ASCPB, but let's face it, he had the will to live, and his body responded to basically the first treatment they gave him. I'd love to see a ASCPB who's been down on the fritz, who has failed traditional treatment, but STILL manages to make it back. It happens all the time - the thing is, we don't see them because they don't win the Tour de France after beating cancer. Our personal ASCPB, our friend George, did that very thing (not winning the Tour de France...) he beat advanced cancer after traditional treatment failed him. HE BEAT IT. And you know what? He had the will to live. I've never seen anyone with a stronger faith. And he just kept going until he found something that worked.

This long blog is prompted by an exciting call I had with Dr. Kemeny's office today. I spoke with her clinical trial coordinator. Dr. Kemeny looked at the scan and confirmed that it's mostly in his liver, but there are some "tiny" spots outside his liver in his abdominal wall. She used the word tiny. So the message through the clinical trial coordinator was "Do the radiation microspheres, then do systemic chemo, and then do the hepatic pump".

The thing that was so exciting was what the clinical trial coordinator told me outside the actual logistics of Jim's treatment. She told me that the hepatic pump is AMAZING. She said that the drug that they administer through the hepatic pump goes crazy on liver tumors. She said that during testing, they were having trouble finding a drug that was ultra-effective through the pump, and they had this older drug just sort of laying around, so they thought "why not"? Well, the older drug was hugely successful. She told me that she's seen lots of patients whose doctor at home told them they had a few months left to live, the people found Dr. Kemeny, and lo and behold, she turned them around using the hepatic pump.

She also said "Kate, no one comes to Dr. Kemeny with early stage cancer. Almost her entire patient roster consists of people with way advanced cancer. The reason you have to wait so long in the waiting room? It's because she's keeping all these people alive. Her client roster keeps growing and growing because few of her patients don't make it." Oh boy. Never again will I complain about time spent waiting for Dr. Kemeny. I'll wait for days if she works some of that magic on Jim.

We're not going to hold Dr. Kemeny to every point of that phone conversation, but it sure would be nice if Jim was one of her success stories. Then we can make Jim a real life ASCPB. It would be really great if we could hold Jim's picture up next to Lance's and people would say "Well, enough about Lance. Did you hear about that Jim Marventano guy?"

P.S. Blog Antagonist - good question about whether or not we can do a liver transplant. That was the first question I asked when he was diagnosed. Cancer patients are typically not candidates for liver transplant because cancer can lurk elsewhere in the body. So theoretically, they could transplant and he could just have cancer all over again. Also, Jim is absolutely not a candidate because he has obvious cancer on his abdominal wall. If our new course of treatment works, Jim will possibly be eligible for a liver resection, which means they remove the half (or up to 80%) of the liver that still has disease. Only if we get rid of the cancer outside his liver. And here's something amazing - because the liver regenerates itself, he can have a resection on say, the left lobe, and then later have a resection on the right lobe. How crazy is that?