First, Shawn worked his sharp-focused magic and got the lines untangled so that I was finally able to get that third PET scan yesterday!! We should get some results by tomorrow (definitely Monday) which is perfect timing because I have an appointment with the re-purposed drug specialist in Nashville on Monday and Tuesday.
Just to recap, Repurposed drugs are standard medicines that are already used to treat different health concerns than cancer. Example: I am currently taking 600mg of Tagamet (cimetidine) a day. Tagamet is used to treat serious heart burn and it's over-the-counter.
The specialist I'm seeing has also discovered a lot of research that this drug blocks cancer from spreading (metastases). He has been doing serious research and working with patients for many years who are using repurposed drugs to keep cancer from growing or spreading even in Stage IV and aggressive cancers. Shawn asked our "favorite cancer doctor question" of "how many of your patients are still alive and for how long?" and this doctor has a number of patients who have lived for over 10 or 20 years using these repurposed drugs and treating cancer as a chronic disease similar to diabetes or HIV. This was very exciting to us considering that my only other major option seems to be life-long chemo, which is not my first (or 100th) choice. And my one goal is keeping cancer away or controlled for the rest of my life.
At this point most people ask, "Why have we never heard about these other drugs?" And the only answers I can come up with are that (1) it's amazing what you learn when your life depends on it, and (2) follow the money. These drugs are far cheaper than the $48,000 that my current chemo is costing our insurance. I am not cynical by nature but there is not a lot of money in treating cancer with repurposed drugs. I will understand a lot more practical things after we go see the doctor next week, which is also why I'm not posting his name or info yet. We're pretty confident I will work with him, but need to see and speak to him first-hand to know we're sure.
So, Shawn and I are off to Nashville, TN from Mon-Wed. I will try and blog from there because I think this is all so interesting and you might be interested in the alternative cancer treatment as well. I've never been to Nashville, so I'm also excited to have 3 days alone with Shawn in such a fun city.
As far as the rest of our lives, my parents are here to help and visit before Christmas (yeah! family) and Shawn had his colonoscopy and will be writing a guest blog/PSA about it soon. We are participating in the "adopt a family" program where you give another family their Christmas (presents and groceries) and everything is due today. We hosted an amazing "Date Night with Fr Nate (Nathan)" with our dear priest friend and a good amount of couple-friends and it was a fun "cocktail and encouragement" evening (Whew)! It has been figuratively "raining and pouring" with events and God's grace. A true miracle is that I feel better than I felt a year ago at this time (chemo side-effects excepted). I have energy to stay up past 9:00pm - even until 1am one night! (which is new this December) and I am busy making plans for what 2020 will look like for us. I literally don't have time for cancer anymore, so I'm excited to see if this doctor can help me get back to my new "girl on a mission" life. I trust Jesus has healed me and I'm just waiting to see the results of that trust. I know "hope does not disappoint" (Romans 5:5)...but, sadly, hope still doesn't wrap Christmas gifts, go to chemo for me or make Christmas dinner, so I'm as busy as you for the next 11 days ;)
More tomorrow!
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