ENCORE #82! – A Vaccine Against 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…That was four years ago – as time passed, people searching for answers stumbled across my blog and checked out what I had to say. The following entry appeared in April 2015.

NOT TODAY OR TOMORROW!!!!!

But maybe someday in the not-too-distant-future!

One of the things that sometimes bugs me about science fiction that’s supposed to be set in the distant future, is when they pull a stunt with the sole intent of making the “futuristic story” relevant to today. I’m reading a novel right now in which soldiers swear with the “f-word”. I can’t help think, “Oh, come on! You don’t REALLY think cuss words are going to stay exactly the same and have the same shock value five hundred or a thousand years in the future, do you?”

Another one, this time relevant to breast cancer, is when the President of the Twelve Colonies on the re-imagined BATTLESTAR GALACTICA is diagnosed with breast cancer. “At her doctor's appointment, Roslin is told that she has breast cancer and a year to live.”

Far be it from me to second-guess a writer and argue for dramatic impact, but this society has TWELV2E separate worlds it governs; it has the capability to build (from scratch) TWELVE massive, monstrous, huge star ships capable of traveling at trans-light speeds – but not a single person ever thought to apply technology to breast cancer research?

Thanks be to God we live in this society! While the BC vaccine is by no means “just around the corner”, there is excellent evidence from a few small studies that it may be something that young adults may experience as a matter of course. There’s a glimmer of hope of creating a vaccine against breast cancer!

Something called “Mammaglobin-A (MAM-A) is overexpressed in 40% to 80% of primary breast cancers.” Because it is so common in breast cancers, researchers can use it as a marker – like a blinking light on top of a water tower! – and design T-cells (also known as white blood cells – the kind that fight disease and infection in Humans) that will specifically attack and eat the cancer cells. “This makes MAM-A a great target for a new cancer therapy as it could hopefully be used for the vast majority of patients with early stage and metastatic disease, where the protein is also found to be overexpressed. The vaccine works by priming white blood cells to target and destroy other cells presenting MAM-A, and the vaccination study was the first of this type against this target.”

The time is not ripe for celebration – the time IS right to get yourself involved with Relay For Life, the Susan B. Kommen Race For The Cure, or to write your checks to your local breast cancer – ANY cancer research – organizations! I and my wife are walking in the Relay For Life sponsored by the high school I work at and our sister high school across the district. (I don’t have a sponsor page up yet, but it WILL be here!

Resources: http://clincancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/20/23/5964.abstract, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Roslin, http://www.crownbio.com/knockout-jab-breast-cancer/

Image: https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5527/10893068965_1d328e8f71_b.jpg

GUY’S GOTTA TALK ABOUT #40…Adjusting My Focus On Breast Cancer, But Losing Focus On My Wife…

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…

When I started this blog, my wife’s breast cancer diagnosis was at the forefront of both mind and effort. Every waking moment was a slog through pre and post op appointments, chemotherapy, recovery, worry, and such a bewildering and blinding flood of light, that likening it to being struck by lightning is an apt metaphor.

Everything we had and did was focused not only on treating the cancer and recovery, but on recovering our “old life”; which morphed into learning to live with a new normal; which became coping with the aftermath, which has finally segued into “life”.

My wife will NEVER be the person she was “before” she was diagnosed with breast cancer in March of 2011. That was now seven years – and 352 blog entries – ago.

My intent broadened from the week-to-week challenges she faced following the diagnosis. I’ve learned more than I ever imagined I could about breast cancer, and along the way watched as various people I love and care for – including myself – felt the cold touch of cancer on their lives.

It’s funny, when I first started the blog, I wanted to call it Breast Cancer Reaper, and had chosen the picture above for it:  http://img0.etsystatic.com/il_170x135.112225675.jpg

As cute and expressive as it was, and while that remains the name of my URL, I backed off to my Guy’s Gotta Talk About title. As time went on, my wife moved from surgical recovery, to chemotherapy, to living with the end results of chemo, to the brutal discovery of lymphedema. That struggle still haunts us. Cancer still haunts us, though I don’t know anyone who is currently struggling with the initial stages. We’ve joined Relay For Life in the school district in which I work, and I spoke during one of those events.

But life continues to move forward and new challenges rear up from unexpected places. Alzheimer’s in my dad is one of my deepest concerns now.

My problem is that I have too many foci at this time and I’ve LOST focus on what’s most important: my wife.

That’s something I’ve only discovered in the past few weeks, much to my terror and shame. So…what do I do?

Shift the focus back to where it should be: the love of my life. My wife.

Sorry, love. Please accept my heart again, which you’ve never once relinquished. I will take yours back and put it back to where it belongs – next to mine.

I WILL this.

Image: http://wrex.images.worldnow.com/images/23784252_SA.jpg

ENCORE #81!: Take Tamoxifen for TEN Years Instead of Five!

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…That was four years ago – as time passed, people searching for answers stumbled across my blog and checked out what I had to say. The following entry appeared in March of 2015.

One of my favorite movies is GALAXY QUEST.

In it, characters from a defunct STAR TREK-act-alike TV show are thrown into a real world alien conflict and expected to be the parts they acted…

At one point, Sigourney Weaver (who plays Gwen DeMarco who plays Lt. Tawny Madison) and Tim Allen (who plays Jason Nesmith who plays Captain Peter Quincy Taggart) have to cross through metal chompy crusher things and then run over a one-foot wide bridge that passes over an endlessly deep hole that is windy…all while aliens are trying to kill them with phasers.

Sigourney Weaver stops and utters an expletive that is VOCALIZED as “Screw this! The sucker who wrote this scene should die!” If you watch her lips, she utters quite a different expletive…

After hearing my wife’s reaction to the recommendation by the American Association of Cancer Research, I might have heard one expletive – but I’m pretty sure the one she was thinking was akin to the one in GALAXY QUEST.

Why?

First: What does tamoxifen do? Some breast cancer cells require estrogen to grow. Estrogen locks on to a cancer cell in certain places and helps it grow. When a person takes Tamoxifen, it’s broken up into parts that lock into the same places that estrogen does – but they STOP the cancer cell from growing. “…tamoxifen acts like a key broken off in the lock that prevents any other key from being inserted, preventing estrogen from binding to its receptor.”

There is also a second  methodology for treating breast cancer that is NOT being changed at this time and that is the use of aromatase inhibitors that work by stopping the production of estrogen. [This is the drug regimen my wife is following at present]: Anastrazole is called an aromatase inhibitor whose primary problem is that it weakens bone structure; though it CAN cause: “Constipation, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, upset stomach, loss of appetite, body aches and pains, breast swelling/tenderness/pain, headache, dry mouth, scratchy throat, increased cough, dizziness, trouble sleeping, tiredness/weakness, hot flashes/hot flushes, vaginal bleeding, hair thinning, and weight change can occur…mental/mood changes, numbness/tingling/swelling of the hands or feet, persistent cough, unusual vaginal discharge/burning/itching/odor, unusually stiff muscles, pain/redness/swelling of the arms or legs, vision changes, bone pain, bone fracture, signs of infection…”; Letrozole can cause “hot flashes, hair loss, joint/bone/muscle pain, tiredness, unusual sweating, nausea, diarrhea, dizziness, sleeping trouble, (unlikely) bone fractures, mental/mood changes, swelling of arms/legs, blurred vision…(rarely) blood clots.”

Any time a drug is taken, its purpose is to change the body in some way – INTENTIONALLY for the better, but there are almost always side effects. With tamoxifen, the main ones are: hypercalcemia (A higher-than-normal level of calcium in the blood [causing] loss of appetite, nausea, thirst, fatigue, muscle weakness, restlessness, and confusion…constipation, form a heart block, lead to calcium stones in the urinary tract, impair kidney function, and interfere with the absorption of iron)…as well as causing “hot flashes, nausea, leg cramps, muscle aches, hair thinning, or headache…(unlikely) vision changes (e.g., blurred vision), eye pain, easy bruising/bleeding, mental/mood changes, swelling of ankles/feet, unusual tiredness.”

While it is TRUE that taking tamoxifen DOES lower the risk of breast cancer recurrence, it seems to me that researchers should CONTINUE to find new ways of dealing with this devastating disease!

References: http://www.rxlist.com/arimidex-drug/consumer-side-effects-precautions.htm, http://www.rxlist.com/femara-drug/consumer-side-effects-precautions.htm

Image: https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5527/10893068965_1d328e8f71_b.jpg

Encouragement (In Suffering, Pain, and Witnessing Both…) #1: Sometimes We All Need Someone To Tell Us, “You are loved…”

The older I get, the more suffering and pain I’ve experienced; and the more of both I stand witness to. From my wife’s (and many, many of our friends and coworkers) battle against breast cancer; to my dad’s (and the parents of many of our friends and coworkers) process as he fades away as this complex disease breaks the connections between more and more memories, I have become not only frustrated with suffering, pain, and having to watch both, I have been witness to the suffering and pain among the students I serve as a school counselor. I have become angry and sometimes paralyzed. This is my attempt to lift myself from the occasional stifling grief that darkens my days…

My favorite author, CS Lewis both understands suffering – his mother died of cancer when he was 10 – the same year his grandfather and uncle also died; he fell gravely ill two years later with a respiratory infection; eight years later, he was wounded in WWI; his father, the woman to whom he was married only a short time before she died of cancer – and has struggled through to revelations about God that uniquely qualify him to make some statements on the subject.

In his fourth book, THE PROBLEM OF PAIN, he points out, “‘The problem of reconciling human suffering with the existence of a God who loves, is only insoluble so long as we attach a trivial meaning to the word ‘love’, and look on things as if man were the centre of them. Man is not the centre. God does not exist for the sake of man. Man does not exist for his own sake. ‘Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.’ We were made not primarily that we may love God (though we were made for that too) but that God may love us, that we may become objects in which the divine love may rest ‘well pleased’.”

I don’t want to give anyone the idea that I think my suffering greater, worse, more noble, or more ennobling than anyone else’s suffering.

All I intend to do in these essays is share things that have helped me either feel better, make sense of, or given me pause to think and consider my suffering in the light of the suffering and pain experienced by those outside of the wealth and privilege I live in.

Lewis has brought me both profound joy; and forced me to think profound thoughts. I have, I think passed on a bit of that joy to my own kids, and when I introduce my grandchildren to the CHRONICLES OF NARNIA (my own introduction to Lewis via my great-aunt, Leola Danielson), I’ll be passing the legacy of Lewis’ joy and profundity to another generation still.

The reason I picked this?

I find it powerfully comforting in light of my dad’s Alzheimer’s decline and my wife’s fight against breast cancer – as well as the pain I see every day in the lives of the students in the high school I serve in as a counselor – to realize that my JOB is not to love God. It’s to BE loved by God:

“We were made not primarily that we may love God but that God may love us, that we may become objects in which the divine love may rest ‘well pleased’.”

God doesn’t require me to work hard to “love him”. There were times in my wife’s suffering that I couldn’t POSSIBLY love God enough. There are times now as I watch my father fade away, that I can’t POSSIBLY love God.

I don’t have to do anything to simply be an object “in which the divine love may rest ‘well pleased’.”

Resources: http://www.cslewis.org/resource/chronocsl/; THE PROBLEM OF PAIN (1940, The Centenary Press)

Image: http://www.quoteambition.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/encourage-quotes-destiny.jpg