In Sickness and In Health

On Thursday, Pat and I celebrated our 14^th year of marriage.  It has been one incredible roller coaster ride.  Our highs are very high and our lows are quite low.  But through it all, Pat remains a steady source of calm and comfort. 

I really need that now.  I continue to wait to figure out whether I made it into the PDL-1 study with Genentech.  My natural inclination is to push at every angle to make it happen.  I did get some good news, though.  Stanford and Genentech finally signed the contract to move forward with the study about a week ago.  Once I got the call from Stanford letting me know this and asking if I could come down to sign the paperwork to send my tumors over to Genentech, I headed down the next morning (yes – I decided to drive from Sacramento to Palo Alto and back the Friday before Labor Day weekend.   It was a lovely 6 hours in my car.)  But – I didn’t want anything to slow down the process.  It was wonderful to meet the team who is conducting the study  - Dr. Holbrooke Kohrt (hopefully you’ll be hearing his name a lot over the next couple of months) and his right hand, Lori.

The plan was that Stanford would send my tumor sample to Genentech this past week and then it will take Genentech about 2 weeks to determine whether I’m eligible.  After checking with my internal contacts at Genentech, they told me that there is about a 30% probability that my tumor will be eligible.  Not great odds but not as bad as they could have been.  I asked if my tumor didn’t have the right make up could I charm my way into the study – with the idea that maybe, just maybe it would still work for me.  Stanford told me that unfortunately they have found that there is basically a 0% chance that the study would work for me if I wasn’t determined to be eligible and by putting me on the drug it would waste my time and my money and all the while my tumors would be growing.  Furthermore, I may be taking the spot of someone who would be receptive to the drug.  I guess to a certain degree there is some comfort in knowing that being pushy just won’t help me.

So – in the next 2 weeks I should finally get the go/no go decision.  Stanford is going to test my tumors as well because they told me that if Genentech tells them that I’m not eligible, but through their testing they think I should be eligible, then they’ll fight Genentech’s decision and try to convince them to let me in.  How lucky am I to work with the great team at Stanford?!

My Rabbi told me that praying to God, asking that he/she make my tumor eligible is not really going to change anything, since it is what it is and God wouldn’t intervene to change the genetic composition of the tumor.  He suggested that I pray for strength whatever the outcome of the testing.   I’ll pray for strength and hope, but with no disrespect to the Rabbi, I will keep the majority of my prayers focused on getting into the PDL-1 study.   

As Pat and I start our 15^th year of marriage, we remain hopeful that this year will be a good year.  That this is the year that I will go into long-term remission.  That this year won’t test our marriage vows but rather we’ll be getting to experience the joy of being together “in health.”