Monday, June 29, 2009

SWMBO Update

Ten days ago I mentioned that SWMBO is looking into a revolutionary new Cancer Treatment program from Massachusetts General Hospital which uses genotyping to "personalize" treatment to each patient.

Tonite she called me to say that her local Oncologist had contacted the program administrators and asked about the possibility that she could enter the program.

Their response (within 24 hours) was that the program was not available to the Pacific Northwest (I understand that to mean that the treatment was not being offered to doctors in that region of the U.S.), but if she was willing to travel to Boston they would test her to see whether she would be eligible for the program.

They also said that if she was accepted, she would have to remain available in the Boston vacinity for two or three months, and wondered if she was willing to accept that condition as well.

SWMBO said "YES!" to every question. Her Oncologist will be forwarding that information to Boston tomorrow, and now we are settling down to wait for further developments.

Although her cancer is atypical in that it has not responded to the usual treatments --
we don't know if they will accept her for testing;
we don't know if the tests will show that she is a viable candidate for the treatment;
we don't know if the treatment will prove to be successful in moving her from the category of "cancer patient" to "cancer survivor" .....

we are both wildly excited about the possibility that she can still beat this.

Please keep those prayers coming, friends. It's cause for hope.

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