This week is an important milestone, as well. Ten years ago I was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. At that time, the survival expectation was 6-12 months from the time of diagnosis, with a 50/50 chance I'd be gone in 8 months. With the available treatments back then, my 5-year survival rate was 2%. Needless to say, it was nearly impossible to be optimistic. In the early days of my cancer journey my brother-in-law, Bob, said to me, "You just need to stay alive long enough for the next medical break-through." At that time, with those odds, Bob's pollyanna comment felt silly, if not, a set-up for failure . Who knew that his words would be prophetic?
Ten years later, I'm still here, being kept alive with a medication that wasn't even FDA approved when I starting taking it. Since then, there are two more medications I can try when this one stops working for me, and a few more are in clinical trials. So...I am staying alive long enough for the next medical break-though. (And yes...I have acknowledged to Bob that he was correct.)
Many life events have occurred and many incredible memories have been made in the last 10 years:
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| Athens with Brigid and Jerry |
- Wynn, Nathan, Nina and I have all traveled to new places - Italy, Spain, Japan, Portugal, Israel, Greece, and more.
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| Nina's residency graduation with Karo |
- Nina completed medical school and residency, and started a new job in Chicago.
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| Nathan and Banshamlak |
- Nathan has found his life-partner and a life for himself in Israel, along with making us grandparents!
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| Our grandson, Nori Leeyu |
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| Our pond... |
- We moved to a single-story house and moved my aging mother in with us.
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| Our garden... |
- I have been able to stay healthy enough to help my mother live out her life in our home, while being able to work and stay close to friends. My mom celebrated her 94th birthday last month.
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| Clair and Dicky's wedding |
- I've celebrated milestone birthdays of family members and friends, attended weddings, bat/bar mitzvahs, shared in the joys of new babies, while watching the babies in our life grow into children, children into teenagers and teenagers into full-fledged adults.
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| Fishing with great-niece, Nora, at our pond |
Life...
it hasn't been perfect, but it's been my honor to have lived this long.
In celebration of my BIRTHDAY and 10th CANCERVERSARY, please consider making a donation to support ROS1-driven cancer research. This helps me and others with the same rare type of lung cancer that I have:
4 comments:
Hi Luna,
Thanks for your blog, shares a lot of hope.
I'm diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer 3 months ago with 36 year old (non-smoker)
Not ROS1, but EGFR instead!
People like you give me hope, thanks for sharing your story!
I also have a blog, if you're interested is www.filipepaixao.pt (you can change language in upper right corner)
Cheers from Portugal ;)
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