Kicking Cancer's Ass

At this point, you're probably aware that I have cancer.  Yep, that's been discussed.  However, I have been pretty bad about updating everyone on the details of my health and treatment in the past several months.  So here I am, updating.  And let me tell you... I've got some awesome news to share.

As I mentioned in a previous post, in June I started taking a chemo pill called Pazopanib.  It is a new drug that was approved by the FDA about two years ago, so there is currently limited data on how cancer responds to it.  It has been used to treat sarcomas before, and it tends to have fewer side effects than infusion chemo drugs do, so we decided to try it while I skipped around having a "real" summer vacation this year (more on those travels to come).

Today I had a slew of appointments: lung/breathing tests, CT scan, EKG, blood labs, as well as pre-op stuff preparing for my right lung surgery on August 12th.  I also met with Dr. B to discuss my CT scan, how I'm doing on the Pazopanib, and see whether the drug had any affect on the spots in my lungs.

Just to recap, the Pazopanib had about a 50% chance of halting the growth of my spots, and about a 10% chance of shrinking them.  Tom and I have learned not to attempt to anticipate the outcome of any of my tests, so we tend to prepare ourselves for the worst case scenario; we find it easier to deal with whatever news we get that way.  So when Dr. B pulled up my scans, we were expecting that nothing had happened, the spots got bigger, or if we were lucky, the drug had slowed the growth of the cancer.  But then Dr. B said "so, the spots shrunk."  Wait.... what?  And there it was, each spot had shrunk enough that I could tell just by looking at the scans with an untrained eye that they were smaller.  Wait... what???  Then Dr. B measured the spots and compared them to my scans in June, and he looked at Tom, and Tom said "so... they shrunk a lot.  Like... by 25 to 30%."  Dr. B nodded.  "They shrunk so much that the little spot that remained in your left lung has disappeared."  Wait... WHAT???

You heard it, folks.  My drugs and I sucker-punched those damn statistics, and after just a month of taking this pill, I managed to bludgeon the cancer into a fairly hasty retreat.  Damn.  Fucking.  Right.

So wait, what does that all mean?  It means that when I have surgery on the 12th (which I am still going to do), it will be easier than we expected.  It means that IF surgery goes well (we expect it to, but it's still major surgery, and we can't treat it like it's a breezy prance across a field of wildflowers with inspiring background music), and Dr. Colson gets out all those pesky spots, then I would have no visible disease left.  After surgery, I would not need to take any more drugs for awhile.  I would not need to have any immediate treatment.  I would be... basically... in remission.

Before we freak the fuck out and start a mosh pit of joy, let me elaborate.  Remission is a loaded word, and I hesitate to use it even now, because for so many people "remission" is just a hop, skip and a jump away from "cured" in their mind, and we can't go there.  Not yet.  Remission just means that I'm in a holding pattern, that I get to watch and wait, that I will get scans every two or three months, making sure that nothing pops up.  But, now we know that Pazopanib works for me, and we can hold on to it "for a rainy day," as Dr. B put it.  Hopefully, that rainy day won't come around for awhile, though probability and statistics show that something will pop up eventually.  But then again, I seem to be destroy-axing (to steal my niece's word) statistics right now, so I'm willing to level-up my optimism today.

Yes, I still have the surgery to get through, and whatever challenges I might face in recovery, but we still bought some champagne on the ride home.  Damn right we're treating this day as a success, as I will for any good news I get on this cancer train, because why the hell not?  I may be in this fight for the long haul, and I might lose some battles, but I just defeated my opponent soundly in this skirmish, and kicking cancer's ass - even just a little of it - definitely deserves a dose of celebration.