Prayer

Today, I opened my mail to find a lovely card inside. When I opened the card, there were beautiful messages from many women, none whose names I recognized. I finally noticed who the card was from – the United Methodist Bible Study Group of Nevada, MO. After looking through the names more carefully, I realized that one of the women was the mother of a colleague and dear friend of mine from Southern California. She had told me awhile back that her mother’s prayer group had been praying for me, but it had completely slipped my mind (I’m going to blame the residual effects of chemo brain).

The notes from these women were filled with love, hope, faith and determination. I was overwhelmed with gratitude and quickly began to tear up. These women were praying for me – this little Jewish girl from Davis. They were spending their energy and time to ask God to help me.

But – this is not the first time that people of faith from throughout the world have asked for God’s help for me. Throughout the years, prayer sisters have popped up in the African American community, friends of friends in Israel have prayed for me at the Western Wall and during their marriage ceremonies, friends have lit candles in churches throughout Europe during their travels, I have received water from Lourdes…quite honestly, it has stunned me how many prayers to God have been said throughout the world to help me as I go through my cancer journey.

Recently, I was reminded by one of these prayer warriors that while I thank a lot of folks in my blog – my doctors, my family, my friends – I rarely mention how grateful that I am to God. I was reflecting on that. I know that I ask for prayers on a regular basis from all of you – so it’s not like I’m hiding the fact that I think that God plays a significant role in my healing. I often talk to God – asking for strength – asking for courage – asking to restore my health. I also personally thank God on a regular basis for the many miracles that I have witnessed over the past 7 years that have enabled me to be alive and thriving today.

I do believe in the power of prayer. So – for those of you who are concerned that I haven’t publicly acknowledged God’s role in my healing – I’d like to be clear that I am very grateful to God for bringing me to this day. I don’t know what he/she has in store for me in the future. I hope that it will be a long life. Furthermore, I am so very very grateful for all of your prayers asking God to aid me throughout my journey.

I just realized that I did not tell you about my latest cancer challenge – I had my stent in my ureter changed on Monday. The surgery went without incident – it was only 30 minutes and I was back at home by noon. On Tuesday, I will be returning to Stanford for my next infusion of PDL-1. I’m expecting this to be without incident.  I’ll be back working in Sacramento by mid-afternoon and home to help the girls with homework by that evening.

Thank you, God.

I Can Breathe

First, I need to apologize. In my craziness this week, I neglected to update all of you on the results from my CT scan. I realized about mid-week that while I had posted on Facebook, I had neglected to inform all of you. And then my week got away from me. It is now Sunday, and I am finally sitting down to give you all the news from last Monday.

On Monday morning, bright and early, I was at Stanford for my CT scan. I was jittery knowing that this was a critical day and the outcomes could have a profound impact on my life. After my 7 am CT, I worked for awhile and then went to my scheduled appointment with Dr. Fisher at 11:45 to get the results only to find out that he was running at least an hour behind. Finally, at around 1:00 pm, my dear friend, Shelley (she came to hold my hand on Monday) and I were ushered to the back waiting area. After waiting an excruciating amount of time, Amanda, the woman who works on the PDL1 study, came in to see me. She told me that while she could not officially tell me anything, she believed that I was going to get an infusion of my wonderful PDL1 that day. Basically, she was cryptically telling me that my tumors had stayed stable and I wasn’t going to be kicked off of the study. I began to cry with joy and relief. Shelley then began to cry. Amanda then started to tear up. Dana, Dr. Fisher’s right hand, walked in to give us the “official” news – the tumors had stayed stable and in fact a few of them had actually decreased in size. Furthermore, my blood work showed that had my cancer indicator number had dropped from 72 to 54 in 3 weeks. This is a very significant decrease.   We were all overwhelmed with happiness. Amanda and Dana told us that they had been on pins and needles for the past couple of weeks because they were so concerned about what the CT would show following the my most recent PET/CT.

Dr. Fisher entered the room with a HUGE smile on his face. The room was joyous knowing that we were not about to change direction. He did offer a couple of more options to have in my back pocket should I no longer get to stay on the trial (neither of the new options were promising – so hopefully I won’t every have to tell you about them). Fortunately, I was given clearance to get my infusion of PDL1 and I spent the afternoon happily soaking in my amazing drug.

Directly following my infusion, I jumped in my car and even made it back to Sacramento in time to put on a whiskey tasting fundraiser for an Assemblymember!

My next scan is not for another 3 months. I feel like that gives me a chance to breathe. I am incredibly relieved that my tumors did not grow, that the PET/CT was picking up other activity besides cancer growth. 

In other good news, the pain in my tush is slowly decreasing and I’m not in constant overwhelming pain. I am definitely looking forward to the day that the pain is no longer such a significant part of my life. But, I’m not complaining – my tumors are stable (which, for me, is all that really matters)!

Thank you all for your heartfelt prayers, positive thoughts, love and amazing energy. I just know that having you all by my side was the reason that I received such phenomenal news on Monday. I am filled with gratitude.

Monday

Thinking about this coming Monday takes my breath away. It is on that day that my life could change. Spoiler alert – I don’t want my life to change.

To get you all up to speed….

As you know, I had a tumor that was discovered in the scar tissue in my tush. The problem was that in order to radiate it effectively, they needed to see it on scan. So a few weeks ago, I took both a PET/CT scan and an MRI with radiation. Fortunately, they were able to locate the tumor and I commenced a 10 round radiation program on July 14. The radiation oncologist was wonderful working with my schedule. He even planned for 2 rounds of radiation on the 17^th so that I could fly down to San Diego that evening. I had to present to my board the following morning and I was holding a fundraiser for the Assembly speaker that afternoon. Amazingly, everything went off without a hitch. I can’t tell you how incredible it was that he was able to work with me – although he did think I was a little nuts.

Unfortunately, the PET/CT scan showed a lot more activity than my previous PET/CT.  This is very concerning for everyone since it could indicate significant cancer growth. So – on Monday, I will be given a regular CT to see if there is growth or if what was lighting up the CT was only inflammation. If my CT shows growth, I will be kicked off of my wonderful Genentech trial with PDL-1. My options at that point are not encouraging. They basically consist of 3 potential paths forward:

1. Go on a trial called CTLA4 – this would inject another immunotherapy directly into a tumor and then we’d blast it with radiation with the hope that it would ignite my immune system to go after the cancer throughout my body (very similar conceptually to what we’ve been doing). Unfortunately, there aren’t great stats that show that this will work on colon cancer.
2. Go on another trial with a name I can’t remember – there is a small company with a single product that they are considering for me. Unfortunately, the trial is in Phase 1, so there are hardly any results.  Also – this trial would entail me going down to Stanford twice a week for 6 weeks for a 4-6 hour infusion. Pretty awful sounding with no encouraging stats to make me excited about putting myself through it.
3. Go back on chemo

So – as you can see, I am really really praying that the CT scan shows stable disease and that I won’t be contemplating any of the 3 options above. If it doesn’t show stable disease, I will most likely try to find out if there are other options with other cancer centers.

I am also continuing to be in a lot of pain from the radiation. They said that the pain should begin to dissipate after a few weeks. It can’t come soon enough. I’m having trouble sleeping because of the pain and that makes dealing with all of this uncertainty even more difficult.

Now you are all up to speed on the latest.  I hate to ask it again, but I need your prayers over the next several days. I’m scared right now. I’m tired right now. I need your strength.  I need your love. I need your faith and hope.