Take that, cancer!

Some months back I wrote about two family friends, both of them doctors (one a retired surgeon) who had developed fairly advanced cancer.

Well, I saw D. (the retired surgeon) over my last visit with my parents. He LOOKED a lot better than he had, and he told my dad that he felt a great deal better, that he could eat normally again, and that he was gaining back the weight he lost during the first stages of treatment. (D. was not a large man to begin with, so weight loss in him was alarming). He said he felt like himself again.

This was the guy who was undergoing a somewhat-experimental blood-cell-based treatment that he had to go through several rounds with his insurance company to get them to help pay for. (My dad was not sanguine about the likelihood of the treatment working, but at this point, it seems to be.)

I heard about the second person last night - this was a woman who was facing a bone-marrow transplant to treat leukemia. She's had the transplant, is doing much better, and is actually back in the office (but not seeing patients, and I think that's wise - I don't know how long it takes for one's immune system to come back full strength after such a thing). This was also someone for whom the future looked kind of grim...but she's back home again, and back working at least part time.

Stories like that make me happy. I feel like every time a treatment works, it's like kicking cancer in the groin.

And I really needed some good news right now - I already knew the news about D. but had not heard anything about A. (the woman).