Devastated
dear allie,
my heart breaks for you and for your mom. such horrific news! you must still be reeling from it.
allie, chemo for even highly aggressive cancer has changed a lot over the past few years. are you near an urban area or a good teaching hospital where your mom would be able to find the most advanced care available or where she might find a phase 3 treatment study of her kind of cancer? i encountered a situation today where a man had been diagnosed with metastatic melanoma. the mets were all through his body and the first highly recommended oncologist he met with told him that the best she could offer him was the advice to pull his personal business together as quickly as possible--statistically, the probability of his survival beyond a few months was less than 1 %.
a bunch of his friends got together and found a study that involved an unusual approach to chemo and this man--now 1 1/2 years post-diagnosis is doing extraordinarily well. the key was that he found a doctor doing a study who didn't want to give up on him. like your mom, he had suffered a serious bout of cancer years before.
from what you wrote, i don't think that you need to abandon hope quite yet. still, I know the heartwrenching feeling of hearing the news that the mother with whom one is very, very close has "untreatable" cancer. i deeply wish that i could offer you more help. for what it's worth, you and your mom and your family will be in my thoughts.
eustacia
dear allie,
my heart breaks for you and for your mom. such horrific news! you must still be reeling from it.
allie, chemo for even highly aggressive cancer has changed a lot over the past few years. are you near an urban area or a good teaching hospital where your mom would be able to find the most advanced care available or where she might find a phase 3 treatment study of her kind of cancer? i encountered a situation today where a man had been diagnosed with metastatic melanoma. the mets were all through his body and the first highly recommended oncologist he met with told him that the best she could offer him was the advice to pull his personal business together as quickly as possible--statistically, the probability of his survival beyond a few months was less than 1 %.
a bunch of his friends got together and found a study that involved an unusual approach to chemo and this man--now 1 1/2 years post-diagnosis is doing extraordinarily well. the key was that he found a doctor doing a study who didn't want to give up on him. like your mom, he had suffered a serious bout of cancer years before.
from what you wrote, i don't think that you need to abandon hope quite yet. still, I know the heartwrenching feeling of hearing the news that the mother with whom one is very, very close has "untreatable" cancer. i deeply wish that i could offer you more help. for what it's worth, you and your mom and your family will be in my thoughts.
eustacia
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