One year ago this past Thursday was my first chemo infusion – A+C – quite the potent stuff. A relationship with chemo is a love/hate relationship; you love the drugs because of the hope they can offer and at the same time you hate them because of the side effects. My nephew Justin sent an email this week with a link to an article about a new method to deliver chemo drugs using nanotechnology. This technology would allow delivery of the drugs directly to the cancer cells thereby reducing the dose of the drugs and potentially much of the side effects. According to the article, the Australian biotechnology firm hopes to begin human trials later this year. Here is the link if you would like to read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070510/sc_nm/cancer_australia_dc.
Speaking of drugs, during the Herceptin infusion this week the oncology pharmacist stopped by for a brief visit and according to her I have only three more Herceptin infusions. The last infusion should be on July 9th and sometime during July I will also have blood tests and a check up with Dr. Risbud and possibly a MUGA scan to check on my heart as well.
It is a little scary to think about going off of Herceptin. When I find myself feeling worried I stop and remember that the odds may be different for me now but really that has not changed anything. Think about it, before cancer I only had the guarantee of life for the moment I was living it and after cancer nothing has changed - I have that same guarantee.
Throughout the book of Ecclesiastes King Solomon relates his attempt to understand life. Here is what he had to say about the odds, “I again saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, and the battle is not to the warriors, and neither is bread to the wise, nor wealth to the discerning, nor favor to men of ability; for time and chance overtake them all.”
This week I was given the best compliment I have ever received - I was told that I looked as if my soul was at peace. I highly recommend the advice of my beauty advisor - King Solomon, “I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil – this is the gift from God.”
Each day is a gift from God, have you said thank you today? “It is good to give thanks to the Lord, and to sing praises to Thy name, O Most High; to declare Thy loving-kindness in the morning, and Thy faithfulness by night.” Psalm 92:1-2
