Since I last wrote, I have been faced with what seemed an impossible crossroads on the treatment front. As I mentionned in the last post (over a month ago), I have been torn with the question, as a fellow refractory cancer patient put it: 'to allo or not to allo (transplant)'. I am happy to write that I have finally found an inner peace with a most difficult decision and now embrace it with compete faith.
Every one of the many doctors I consulted during the past month agreed on one thing - that for me THERE IS NO RIGHT ANSWER.. Simply far too few patients with my kind of track record (ie heavily pre-treated including a past failed autologous transplant, with my particular rare kind of advanced cancer -refractory sALCL), to know what to do next with me.
At the end of the day I followed my gut and decided to take a leap of faith and not do the proposed allogenic transplant now. I opted out after weighing out the immediate risks, which include a high treatment related mortality. Shortly after I made this decision, I got approval for an extension on my current treatment!!
So happy for this; for now things with the current therapy are keeping the disease at bay which in itself is a huge improvement compared as you well know, to how I was doing this time in the past 2 years.. We are still unclear how many more treatments I will get. This depends on a number of factors (funding, my response to the drug and toleration of its associated neurotoxicity), so I will just have to take it one cycle at a time and we will see how it goes from here.
Other than all this going on behind the scenes, we continue to juice daily and I take various supplements mentionned before to help support my immune system, slowly decreasing from 10,000 IU daily of vitamin D3 now that I try to spend as much time out in the sun when it is out :) Feels so good to be alive!!
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| Konrad captures this moment in the sun, me and Karolek, Easter 2012 |
During Easter the three of us spent lots of time (and lots of eating) with our families, and for Karolek chocolate treats from the Easter Bunny were a huge hit with him after he for the first time, gave up chocolate this year during Lent. We also got a chance to have an Egg Hunt for him and his friends out in our backyard on a sunny afternoon. Thankful for all this.
Thank you to those of you I have reached out to for advice in this difficult past few weeks. I cannot tell you how much it means to feel the support I do from everyone around me. I have had many reminders to keep my faith strong. I heard a wise man recently say, 'we must exercise our faith like we exercise our muscles. And pray to God that he may give us our faith' :) Nice and simple, but it really hit a chord that stuck with me. A dear friend also reminded me of a song, 'Be not afraid, I go before you always, come follow Me, and I will give you rest'.. These words are among those that now resonate with me, and have helped me to restore my sense of peace.
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| Karolek brought this Easter card home from Junior Kindergarten |
I pray that this Easter and the spring in the air brings you and your families first and foremost FAITH, PEACE and renewed HOPE. May God bless you all.
