Pastor Dave—a Vietnam war veteran—often talks about “the fog of war.” As I understand it this refers to the fact that on a battlefield nothing turns out exactly like you plan because the real time events present a set of often conflicting data that are hard to interpret properly, and then respond to appropriately. We’re seeing this in a big way on Fox News each night in Iraq, but I submit that there’s a similar fog that occurs during the individual cancer-sufferer’s battle with the disease.
This week, for example, has been considerably foggy for Susan and me. After a wonderful weekend with the family, Monday and Tuesday were tough ones for Susan in terms of how she felt. Yesterday, for example, she felt so bad in the morning that she said: “I think I’m getting worse.” But by yesterday evening, after our arrival in Houston, she was feeling better. As I write this she is getting her sixth dose of TLK286, after getting some really good news: her weight went UP this week back over 100 lbs to 100.5. I guess all those cheese-topped potatoes are doing some good. On the other hand (more fog) she is feeling new pressure in different spots. In discussing this with our nurse Lisa, she said that with other patients it has been difficult to determine if symptoms are from the tumor growing or the tumor dying.
Clearing some of the fog that resulted from Saturday’s visit with Dr. Munoz, Lisa—after talking to Dr. Kavanagh—confirmed that TLK286 is NOT a pegylated taxol. Taxol works by preventing cell division throughout the body. (That’s why it causes your hair to fall out.) TLK, on the other hand, works by being attracted to and penetrating the cancer cells only, and then initiating cell death (apoptosis). This bit of “fog-clearing” certainly eases our minds somewhat after Dr. Munoz’s comment on Saturday.
Another patch of fog concerns Susan’s blood work. The latest indicates her white cells are doing well, but her red cells are down. We’ve been through the latter problem before during chemo. So today she will receive a shot of procrit to help boost her red count. In addition Lisa has recommended daily vitamins including daily iron tablets, as well as calcium.
Next week is the big week. Susan will get her CT scan and that will determine whether TLK is working and whether Susan continues in the trial. This will be a long trip to Houston, so we will greatly appreciate your prayers for both Susan’s ability to endure the trip and the scan, and that the data will indeed show that TLK is being effective. Once again thanks for supporting us in prayer so faithfully.
Posted by John Dishman at March 27, 2003 05:52 PM