My wife and I found out she had cancer back in March, 2008. We landed in Jamaica and the airline lost her luggage, and so we went shopping for new clothes. As she tried on new blouses, I noticed a large lump protruding from her stomach cavity. I felt it and it was hard as a rock. We were concerned enough to fly back to New York on Monday and went immediately to one of the large hospitals in New York City. We waited in the maternity ward for a sonogram. A very good doctor immediately identified the lump as cancer. She was operated on, a complete hysterectomy, and 94% of the cancer was removed. One might ask: why not all of it? Some of the cancer was too difficult to get to. That was the surgeon's understandable explanation. Cancer was diagnosed as ovarian cancer.
She began treatment with Taxol. It worked. Six months later, her cancer was in remission and never returned for four years,but when it did, it returned with a vengeance. I do not recall any sonograms, CT Scans or any important exams during the four year period the cancer was in remission. Giant mistake if that were the case. Three large tumors were located in late August, 2012.
The cancer blocked her colon and so surgery was performed to bypass the colon. No cancer was removed during this procedure. She was again placed on Taxol. Was that a mistake? Well, it did not work. I pressed her doctor to perform a biopsy to gather up fresh tissue to take to a well-known lab out in California, the Wiesenthal Lab. She turned down my request. One would assume that if the cancer had mutated, then the new cancer which grew back would be immune to Taxol. In my wife's case, the cancer was immune to the drug which worked four years earlier. I attempted one more time to convince her doctor to perform a biopsy, but she turned down my second request to perform a biopsy. Instead , she put my wife through a second series of chemo treatments with Doxol. This chemical did not work either.
Later I found out that some of the giant hospitals which treat cancer have certain protocol which they follow and apparently rarely digress from, In my wife's case, the hospital protocol for treating ovarian cancer was followed. Doxol failed to stop her cancer from growing.
Her CA-125 numbers during this period were consistently low and rarely moved above 30. We discovered too late that the CA-125 numbers can be extremely inconsistent, since even when the cancer was growing, her numbers sometimes went down! With each treatment , my wife and I anxiously waited for the CA-125 number , but not knowing that the number could vary from week to week for any number of reasons. This number is not to be trusted. Period. We should have been told that in the early going , but we were not.
Her doctor told her she had pretty much ran out of options after the second chemo failed to stop the cancer from growing. She suggested visiting another hospital, well-known for the treatment of cancer. The second doctor suggested a drug, Iridikin, which had been treated on kidney tumors and been successful, but not ovarian cancer patients. I argued with the doctor, opting for a biopsy instead, taking the position that since this drug was not even used on ovarian cancer patients, it could not be trusted to kill her cancer, so if it had no prior success in treating ovarian cancer successfully, why give it to her. I lost the argument.
Within weeks , my wife's bowels began to shut down. Was it the cancer growing and shutting them down, or the Iridikin, or even perhaps the leftover tissue from her operation in August? No one can be certain what caused the bowel shutdown. Later, I was told by an oncologist that this particular drug can shut down bowels , and he does not use it for his own patients because of that disastrous effect. Within one month, my wife began to experience the bowel shutdown. Her stomach bloated, she was unable to pass gas, eat or drink, and suffered excruciating pain. I rushed her to the hospital where doctors on duty tried to relieve her pain by relieving the pressure to her system of the bowel shutdown. Some relief ensued and she was sent home. The cancer treatment with Iridikin continued, but it was clear the cancer continued to grow. Two more visits to the hospital were necessary because of the incredible pain caused by the bowel shutdown. She could not pass gas, could not eat, could not drink. It was a horrific experience and my wife continued to deteriorate rapidly.
By late July, it was necessary to take her in to the hospital since the pain from her distended belly was simply too much to bear. Her doctor was on vacation. A CT Scan was finally performed. A second doctor on call read the Scan and said that her cancer had "stabilized." Later, I took the disc of that CT Scan to another doctor, and he told me bluntly that my wife was dying.
While my wife was still at the hospital, I called another doctor on duty and asked her to ease my wife's pain by removing some of the cancer fluid from her stomach cavity. She agreed. She was sent down to radiology to remove the fluid. While this work was being carried out, I asked the doctor if she would assist me in packaging the fluid to send to the Wiesenthal Lab for study to determine what chemicals would work on my wife. The fluid was boxed and sent to the Lab. The results showed three of the chemicals which my wife was treated with, failed in the Lab, basically showing these chemicals were not sensitive to her cancer. However, one chemical, Altretamine, was found to be extremely sensitive to her cancer and found to be the drug which showed considerable possibility of killing Anita's cancer.
It was too late. the lab results came back just five days before she died. This new drug could only be taken orally , and Anita could not drink or eat, and the drug, a pill , according to her doctor would not reach to her stomach cavity and be absorbed into the blood stream. I objected strenuously. If she was dying, why not try anyway to give Anita the drug? She refused. Anita died a few days later without her taking the one drug which gave us hope that she would beat her cancer.
I am a strong advocate of biopsies: to determine the existence of cancer, as a means to determine what chemical will work on cancer, and as a strong tool to detect cancer in its earliest stages. Why try a drug which is untested when lab results will show a drug will kill a particular cancer?
This experience is one experience. Anyone can add to this blog. Please avail yourself to do so.
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