Making a Way in the Wilderness

We received the best possible news: I can do targeted therapy! The genetic analysis was completed yesterday and showed that 41% of the biopsied cells have an EGFR mutation . ("EGFR [epidermal growth factor receptor] is a protein on cells that helps them grow. A mutation in the gene for EGFR can make it grow too much, which can cause cancer.) There is an effective medication for this mutation: Tagrisso (made by AstraZeneca, came on the market in 2018).  I cannot tell you how relieved and elated we were to hear this news. According to the oncologist, he has patients who have been taking targeted therapy for years. The side effects he mentioned seemed pretty minor and manageable. I will take 1 pill a day for the foreseeable future and will need a lung CT scan about every 3 months and a brain MRI about 3 times per year (at least initially). I will do continued treatment at the Hillman Cancer Center in Pittsburgh.  The oncologist said there's no reason we can't travel, so on Sa...

We meet with the oncologist tomorrow (June 30) at 11am. I've never experienced a period of waiting like this. We wait to find out about college or grad school admissions, for pregnancy results, for holidays and vacations, for news on grant proposals and journal manuscripts, for spring to arrive, for planes to depart. Christians wait during Advent and Lent.  This waiting feels fundamentally different. We will find out if I get to take the easier road (targeted therapy) or the harder road (chemo). Until tomorrow, everything is in limbo. We don't know if we'll be able to take the trips we had planned in July. I haven't started revising my syllabus for the fall because I don't know if I'll be able to teach in person or have to switch to an online course. I don't know if we'll be able to celebrate my 50th birthday in July the way we had planned. I plowed through feedback on chapters for the book I'm co-editing because I don't know what kind of side ef...

A silver lining of staying in Hamburg for medical care is getting to enjoy views like this (on our walk to MRI appointment).  My friend Cherish shared this quote from U2: " Grace finds beauty in everything." We will miss the water, bridges, public spaces, and beautiful scenery of Hamburg.

I know that bad things happen to good people, that tragedy strikes. Tragedies have happened to many people I've known over the years: freak accidents, car accidents, violent crimes, diseases both swift and protracted, children born with incurable illnesses, lives cut short too soon -- not to mention the cruel lottery of where you're born and the resources you have (or not). But I never saw cancer as something that was likely to happen to me. I did everything right. I have good Dutch family genes. I check few of the boxes on those family health history forms. I never get sick, even when everyone else around me does. I've commented that I think being a lifelong runner plus my parents' and grandparents' super longevity (87 to 99 years--my dad and a couple of aunts are still going strong well into their 90s) gave me a false sense of invincibility. How does a 49-year-old, healthy, fit, non-smoker get lung cancer?! It doesn't make sense. As I've learned from a cou...

As a professor, I write for a living. So it's only natural that I would turn to writing as I face a diagnosis of lung cancer. Instead of creating a CaringBridge site to keep people updated (I don't appreciate their donation pitches), I decided to start a blog. The first few entries are edited versions of what I posted on Facebook and sent via email in the first 2 weeks of this journey.  June 9, 2022 Well, this is an unexpected turn of events. I am stuck at a hospital outside of Hamburg because they are testing me for TB. They can't do it until tomorrow and it takes a while to determine if I have it and if so, whether I'm infectious. Best case scenario is a couple days. If I have TB and am infectious, I will have to stay here 2 weeks. I started experiencing shortness of breath/fatigue while running last fall. Had a full work-up done of heart and lungs; everything came back normal except for iron. I figured the exercise fatigue was due to low iron plus menopause. Iron is ...