Chemotherapy: One Year Later and GODZILLA vs Breast Cancer

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…

Next Thursday, I’ll be going with my wife to the One Year Appointment. At the end of August, 2011, her chemo was done. Since then, it’s been a regimen of daily pills, bouts of lymphedema and struggles with balancing medications (cholesterol, synthroid, pseudephedrine, and so on).

HOWEVER, it’s also been a year filled with all kinds of joy: haircuts, camping and travelling (which stopped last summer), party times with friends without exhaustion setting in, birth of a granddaughter, play time with the grandkids and walks in the park, 25th Wedding Anniversary date to a dinner theater, parting with our daughter, three times to fireworks, and plans for our foster daughter to go to New Zealand. A rich life, to be sure.

NOT that life before cancer wasn’t rich, but now there’s a new appreciation of life. I don’t take traveling for granted any more. I certainly don’t take CAMPING for granted anymore: the roughness of the terrain, distance to the bathrooms and the bugs and darkness are tough enough for an able-bodied old man like me. They would have been very, very difficult for someone in the throes of chemotherapy! The fact that we could celebrate 25 years together after a hellish year following the initial diagnosis is spectacular!

The worry is much less as well – last summer, every time I went to work, I worried. It made for a pretty bleak time in some ways. I tried to keep my Scandinavian stoicism well-oiled and practiced, but I’m sure the anger, fear and bitterness leaked through (ask my students to see if I managed).

Not this summer! We’re even planning on going to the Great Minnesota Get-Together (for those of you reading this who are not from Minnesota, it’s also known as the Minnesota State Fair) after the One Year appointment to walk about and eat ourselves silly – and probably watch the fireworks show just before we go home (making it four fireworks displays we’ll have seen!)

Life is sweet – but let me add a caveat: life is NOT “the same” as it was before the breast cancer diagnosis of March 2011. Every moment, every event, every laugh, every fireworks explosion is a cause for celebration. Every hug from our grandkids, every tear-inducing laugh during cards, every walk to the park to throw the dog’s rope, every plan we make for the new cabinets and every trip to Target is cause for sighing in wonder at the things that make for life.

I am a blessed man; even with that, I extend my deepest sympathies to those who have lost their mate, their love, their mother, sister, colleague or partner to this scourge. We WILL defeat it. Next August I WILL ride in the 2013 Breast Cancer Ride (http://www.breastcancerride.org/site/PageServer?pagename=Homepage)– and I will find a T-shirt that has Godzilla stomping out breast cancer!

Image: http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2012/128/8/2/commission__burning_godzilla_vs_destoroyah_by_parakarry64-d4yz7f5.jpg

BREAST CANCER RESEARCH RIGHT NOW! 1: Some Breast Cancer Cells Are Fighting Back Against Treatments

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…

Starting today and running once a month, I’ll be highlighting breast cancer research that is going on RIGHT NOW! Harvested from different websites, journals and podcasts, I’ll translate them into understandable English and share them with you.

So here goes: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120809133851.htm

Disturbing news comes from the University of Colorado Cancer Center that some breast cancer cells have been discovered that are able to hide from chemotherapy drugs by changing their structure to look more like benign stem cells.

Breast cancer cells are gluttons for the hormones progesterone and estrogen. It’s what “feeds” them. Anastrazole uses that gluttony to target breast cancer cells. Following the cancer cell killing, DNA twisting and cell-division-interfering chemotherapy, the long-term, five-year treatment slows down the production of estrogen so that any breast cancer cells that survived the chemo will starve to death.

Some breast cancer cells are gaining this ability because of tiny proteins called microRNA and abbreviated miRNA (the image above is a model of a piece of miRNA). Discovered in the early 1990s and classified in the early years of the 21st Century, scientists had thought to use the miRNA to create drugs that would specifically attack breast cancer cells instead of taking out white blood cells and other normal cells.

What they found was that some cells had learned how to turn off a certain miRNA – and then don’t need progesterone any more. This means that the drugs targeting progesterone hungry breast cancer cells -- aren't being taken in by the cancer any more.

Now that they are aware of this cell behavior, the research HAS discovered a way to “turn off” one of the miRNA proteins that help hide the breast cancer cell. Right now it’s only been used in test tube trials. There’s a good chance that the procedure will make its way into human trials in the near future – and then be added to the arsenal of therapies used to fight breast cancer!

Image: http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/molekuul/molekuul1201/molekuul120100019/12097694-3d-view-of-a-molecule-of-a-microrna-mirna-molecule.jpg

Camping For The Health Of It!

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…

We went Down South (instead of the traditional Up North) to do some HEALTHY camping among the Singing Hills, so I'll get back down to business -- and a NEW FEATURE next Saturday!

“My ______ had breast cancer and...” + Lymphedema Massage

From the first moment my wife discovered she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…

The world of breast cancer continues to be smaller and smaller.

At a wedding we attended a few weeks ago held on Spirit Mountain in Duluth, a former student of mine who has become a friend came up to us as we were leaving for the three hour drive home. He and I embraced as I got teary eyed again, then he embraced my wife and whispered in her ear. Then he got back to the groom business of greeting everyone else.

As we walked to the car, my wife said, “He whispered, ‘Keep on fighting’.”

A few days later, my wife asked me to ask him what he meant.

His reply: “My grandmother fought it for 15 years, in the end it was too much, but she never stopped fighting!!! Those 15 years, though hard fought, allowed her so many joys! [My new wife] also wises to express her regards. All things are possible!”

Different story, shrinking world: two nights ago, we went to a dinner theater in celebration of 25 years of marriage. My wife booked us a “pot luck” table – which means that there were six seats forming one table, so that we would be sitting with four others we’d never met before.

Ours were the center seats, across from each other. Shortly the others arrived and there were introductions all around and we began to chit chat pleasantly. Dinner ended, the show began then paused for a 20 minute Dessert Intermission. Chatting some more, the woman next to my wife asked about the layered athletic bandages on her arm. My wife explained they were for lymphedema treatment due to breast cancer.

The woman began an animated monologue explaining that she was a massage therapist and frequently worked with breast cancer survivors experiencing lymphedema.

The disease is everywhere. It seems that “everyone knows someone” who is being treated for or who has survived breast cancer. It makes for a small community; it makes for sympathy and strength all around.

It’s a GOOD thing that has happened despite the horror that brought it about, and so I rejoice that my wife continues to be a survivor with a powerful word!

Image: http://www.lgstudio.biz/pics/200710220726570.Breast-Cancer-Survivors-07.jpg

CELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF MARRIAGE TODAY!