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| Source: www.Sacredart-murals.co.uk (and yes, that is a real website) |
When I first made the appointment for my second opinion, the woman who helped me make my appointment told me I had to keep positive and not lose hope because that was the most important thing. Now, for my money I think quality medical care is the most important thing, but hope is nice, too.
When you have cancer, "Hope" just seems to come up a lot.
I feel like I'm so over the whole "Whoo-hoo! Lots of pink and we're going to beat this thing!" hoopla (I may have been born a bit cynical--your mileage will obviously vary and, sure, someone must like that because goodness knows there's enough of it going on), and I'm very distrustful of "Hope" for the sake of hope. Plus, while I'm all for not being a downer all the darn time, I don't seem to have it in me to believe that hope is enough to cure anything (well, anything except hopelessness, but other than that...).
And still, for all my cynicism, I do have hope. Really, I do.
There are things that I hope for, of course. I hope to see my married stepson and his wife become parents on their own schedule when they feel ready (see, guys, no pressure!). I hope to see my stepdaughter get married to the man of her dreams and have children of her own. I hope to see my younger stepson finish college and get a job he loves, fall in love and get married and have his own children, too. And for my daughter, I hope to see her graduate high school and then go on to do all those things I want for her brothers and sisters, too. And, for my husband and I, I hope we will live out the rest of our days supporting each other and continuing to finish each other's sentences and know what the other is about to say before it's even said (Yes, we're irritating that way. I once told my husband it was a good thing we married each other because otherwise finishing each other's sentences would seem really strange, to which my daughter piped up, "Plus, you have a really hard time explaining me." Very true, baby girl, very true.).
Sometimes I feel like writing down what I hope for here is a bad idea. It seems kind of depressing in a way, to be talking about things I hope for that may or may not be that realistic. Several people have commented to me about how sad it made them to read one of my earlier posts where I'd thought I'd dodged the stage IV bullet only to know I hadn't really dodged a darn thing. Sorry, guys, here I go again.
Still when I say I could be around for decades, I don't think I'm just spouting stuff.
Really, it's not so very unrealistic. It will take a turn of good luck, of course, mostly that some of the treatments they put me on stop progression for a good chunk of time--that's really the key to this whole thing and it's what I'm hoping and praying for.
The basic treatment plan for me right now is to continue to take the Faslodex for a few months and then do some scans to see if it keeps the cancer stable or shrinking. If it does, we continue like that indefinitely. If it doesn't, we move on to the next treatment. But either way, we use the treatment and scan to see if it works, and then use it or something else again.
If I get a long time on Faslodex before it stops working, I'll probably be on another therapy that works to exploit the cancer's hormone receptor status. If not, it may be on to chemo with the same exact goal: use it, scan, continue or move on.
The hope is (yes, "hope" again) that each treatment will keep me stable for a while before it stops working. Because each "while" adds up to time and life, which is, of course, the goal.
The good thing is, I don't really need Faslodex or any of the other treatments we have today to work forever (that's good, because nothing is really expected to), I just need them to keep me alive long enough to not run out of treatments before the next big treatments comes out.
I know, cynical me even knows it sounds a little delusional, I but I don't think it is. I have no idea what will or won't work in the future, but new things come out all the time. This week's selection in the news is:
- Yttrium-90 shows promise in metastatic breast cancer
- Novartis to present early stage data on 19 investigational compounds at AACR annual meeting
- Will Pfizer unveil a breast cancer blockbuster this Sunday
(Drug companies and researchers tend to announce things at the big oncology conferences, and this weekend the American Association for Cancer Research has a national meeting. It should be a great time for hopeful news for cancer patients, oncology professionals, and drug companies (and believe me, I hope those drug companies make a boatload of cash off of these things, which I'm assuming is what they're hoping for, because healthcare costs and Vlog Brothers aside, I'm ok with drug companies getting money for coming up with great new things that could keep me alive and I want them to have lots and lots of incentive to keep on doing it.))
I wish I knew what God had in store for me and my loved ones. I hope His plan is to have me here on earth for a while yet to come, even as I know that may not be it at all. But in lieu of seeing into the future (a skill I'm clearly very bad at--cancer? didn't see that one coming), looking at hopeful developments and ways that this could go well are ok, at least as a start.
Somewhere between "Hope" as a catchphrase for "cancer patient should embrace this so they can be inspirational the way we want them to be" and "Hope" as a way to avoid dealing with scary things (which is a use, I have to admit, I may be sort of fond of,), there really is "Hope" out there that comes from good things on the horizon that have some likelihood of coming out and helping me and people like me.
And, yeah, I hope it really does work out that way.
And, yeah, I hope it really does work out that way.
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