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<p>[Kansas.com</a> | 12/24/2007 | Nun forgoing cancer treatment finds her strength in prayer](<a href=“http://www.kansas.com/news/story/263343.html]Kansas.com”>http://www.kansas.com/news/story/263343.html)</p>
<p>LTS, my best wishes for a New Year filled with continued strength, humor, and love.</p>
<p>LTS, Wishing you a healthy, happy new year.</p>
<p>Happy New Year, LTS! I’m glad your D went on her trip and that you can live it vicariously through the sound of her spinning helicopter blades. Best wishes to you for 2008!!!</p>
<p>Hey, LTS. I haven’t had much for you because well… I suck at this stuff. My first thought of the New Year will be about you. That ought to cause a ripple, right? 
Brunettes rule.</p>
<p>Bells!!!WHISTLES!!!Sirens!! Thinking of you. ;)</p>
<p>Hey LTS,</p>
<p>Like Curm, I wanted my first CC post of the New Year to be to you (I nodded off and missed the New Year come in). But like others I am wishing you I am glad that you are here in 2008 and I wish you and your D a blessed and happy new year.</p>
<p>*** H A P P Y N E W Y E A R S ***</p>
<p>HAPPY, HAPPY NEW YEARS, LTS!!! </p>
<p>May each and every new day bring a smile to your face.</p>
<p>Happy New Years, LTS. May you celebrate many more.</p>
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<p>[Never</a> Play Cards With a Man Called Doc: Playing God](<a href=“http://pokerdoctor.blogspot.com/2008/01/playing-god.html]Never”>Never Play Cards With a Man Called Doc: Playing God)</p>
<p>Thank you so much for the nice posts and new years wishes, and, of course, very Happy New Year to the CC community as well. I appreciate so much all of your kind thoughts. Having a very serious illness is a lonely, frightening place to be, even if one has resources and options and some empirical data points that support realistic hope. I cannot imagine what this is like for those who have little or no resources, and I fear for them greatly. That is why our health care system just simply has to be fixed. I am still no further down this road, but I’ve gotten really good at writing posts complaining about it… </p>
<p>For me, for now, the year begins with chemotherapy #6. I am lucky to have had no side effects or blood count issues etc. but I have no idea at all if this translates in any way to a remission or survival benefit. I don’t think there have been any studies on it. But in any event all is going well, and, we will see what the doctors say next. Hopefully my chief oncologist, the brilliant argentine will have some magic up his sleeve. Or perhaps he will not need any. </p>
<p>I too am glad my daughter went on her trip. The very thought of her declining in order to sit in a chemotherapy room with me would have destroyed me, long before any aggressive cancer could. Today they all flew to Bali 
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<p>Epistrophy, that is some article. Astonishing. I need to go back and read it again…and again…</p>
<p>Another member who doesn’t visit often, but thinks of you. May 2008 bring you many good things.</p>
<p>Wow, epistophy, what a dilemma! And what a powerful writer. I’ve enjoyed the links you’ve posted to writings of so many inspiring people.</p>
<p>LTS, thank you for the update. I’m know I’m not the only one who is following your saga.</p>
<p>Please know I am very grateful for your thoughts and support. I cannot find it just now, and in any case the original source was not provided (I could have hunted it down but didn’t), but, there is a reference on Richard Bloch’s website about a trial/study that was done that went something like this: a group of cancer patients was divided into two equal groups based on diagnosis/prognosis/age/treatment etc., but they didn’t know they were part of a study; a geographically distant group of people who did not know any of the patients prayed for one of the groups but not the other - actually I think they were not even told there were two groups. The group that had prayers said for them went into remission, lived longer, had few recurrances etc. than the control group, even though they had no idea that prayers were being said for them by this distant group of people. </p>
<p>In other news, I have been tracking my speed, time to shortness of breath, pulse, etc. while running the treadmill. My thinking was that after first line treatment, it’s going to be simply maddening to wait two-three months for the next scans considering how fast small cell grows and considering the high rate of relapse, so, I thought that carefully tracking my physical capabilities might provide me with an early warning system. </p>
<p>I don’t get into this level of detail with my primary oncologist - he is narrowly focused - passionately obsessed actually - on destroying cancer cells, and has no interest in any peripheral matters and rapidly loses patience with any discussion that isn’t about how are we destroying this cancer, right now, today. When he looks at me, he sees tumors, numbers, blood counts, etc., as opposed to the patient. I’m o.k. with that though - that’s exactly the way I want him, and there are other oncologists on my team that I get the other stuff from - so - I met with one of them today, and expressed concern that the distance and time that I can run before getting short of breath and/or before my pulse is really racing and I must slow to a walk seems “off” to me, etc., and, is it a result of chemotherapy???- it just about has to be… He said that his numbers would be the same, too, he cannot do that well on a treadmill, but then he also said that tracking treadmill performance will NOT serve as an early warning system the way I hope it will. He said that I would have to be absolutely overcome with cancer in both lungs before I would see it show up in treadmill performance. </p>
<p>Now, it’s really hard for me to imagine that this is true, but, if it is true, it’s disappointing. He also said that three months is not that long to wait for a scan. I think specific to small cell, it is. But then I have to really try to remember, wait a minute, he went to medical school, and, I’m well, late to school. </p>
<p>I wish I could find some science on this - it’s driving me insane and four of us have been drilling resources for days, we spent the last two days on this, and we cannot find anything at all on performance status specific to predictive of relapse/recurrance, and we certainly cannot find anything on physical fitness and small cell lung cancer patients. But we’re not scientists…</p>
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<p>And, bless you, you do make me laugh.</p>
<p>I admire and understand your need to understand…I am pretty sure I would do likewise (I hope I would be like you, any way!). </p>
<p>Prayers are still commin’, though.I have rehearsal tonight and that group of folks has been praying for LTS for months, now.</p>
<p>Happy New Year!!</p>
<p>I don’t post here too often; there are so many more eloquent people. Please know, though, that i think of you, and pray for you, often.</p>
<p>A friend of mine was diagnosed with breast cancer this summer. She had a mastectomy and is in the midst of chemo right now. We attend the same church (used to teach sunday school together.) I don’t get there much lately, but at Christmas Eve service, I watched and listened to her, up in the choir, in her turban, with a constant, wide, smile on her face–just, absolutely…glowing. She made me think of you.</p>
<p>A very very Happy New Year to you and your Helidaughter.</p>
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<p>[Battling</a> cancer and keeping hope alive](<a href=“Sign in - Google Accounts”>Sign in - Google Accounts)</p>
<p>Churchmusicmom, thank you so much for the many prayers, especially considering that there are people fighting similar battles in equal or greater need. Randy Pausch with three young children, and this young lady in E’s most recent post are examples. My heart just breaks for Siedah’s parents. I cannot imagine what they must be going through. As hard as it is to be a person with cancer, having one’s child have cancer must just simply be 100 times harder. Perhaps these people and others like them could have part of “my” share of the prayers? (I feel guilty if they do not have a CC with their very own Churchmusicmom. Randy Pausch might but not sure of anyone else…)</p>
<p>Garland, thank you for thinking of me. I am sorry to learn of your friend; I wish for her a full, speedy recovery and that cancer becomes a distant memory. We do need to do something about this cancer epidemic. It’s getting ridiculous - and shocking. One of the people that my Helidaughter (I love that word by the way - it’s perfect!!! - thanks for that!) had call me is an eight year breast cancer survivor - anyway, the call ended up being a very unfortunate choice. Not my daughter’s fault but the woman - in an effort to make me feel better - told me about three other people who had various cancers; two of them fought hard before dying of their diseases within three years, and, unfortunately, I knew them both, even though I hadn’t seen them in years. (The woman didn’t know I knew them, so she didn’t know she trainwrecked me, but anyway it was hard.) </p>
<p>The third actually works at a national cancer center, and was diagnosed in September with a cancer so aggressive and ominous that there is no treatment for it; she was given three months or so to live. She ended up scrounging about for her own trial at MD Anderson, went there, and subsequently got tossed out of the trial for low counts or something. I didn’t believe it until I looked up the PDQ on cancer.gov, and there it was. I’ve since thrown away all of my notes on the conversation, it was simply so upsetting and not at all what my daughter intended and I hung up the phone just miserable, but, I was also left with simply being convinced that we have to get the NCI funding put back, we simply have to get the research mechanism fixed. </p>
<p>One of the most informative components of “Surviving Terminal Cancer” by Ben Williams (from Padad’s post) is the information about the system of research and clinical trials in the U.S., especially compared to other countries. My staff and I have spent hours and hours on pubmed.gov, and, specific to small cell lung cancer, the escalation from research to market in a few other other countries is amazing. What Williams writes is consistent with what I have found in my research, but he articulates it far more powerfully and then supports it with substantial source material. It’s not the fault of the scientific community, it’s the stupid archaic laws we have, and the amount of money required to mount trials, and the way the trial process is structured. It’s ridiculous - bizarre actually - that a woman can be diagnosed with a lethal cancer WHILE EMPLOYED AT A NATIONAL CANCER CENTER, and, even though surrounded by those resources, she still has to get on the internet to do her own research to find her own trial. Then of course she scrambles together her money to buy airfare to fly to Texas for it…even though it’s chemo cocktail which is essentially just a prescription it still has to happen 2,000 miles away from where she lives…no way could anyone make it easier on her…yeah…we just absolutely must fix this mess.</p>
<p>Add my voice to the chorus of those who wish you & Helidaughter a Happy New Year!!</p>