It’s been quite a long time since we’ve updated anyone on how Anna’s doing, so I thought I’d put up a post for whomever might still be checking. Anna went on a medication called Tarceva in December. It’s a drug that’s designed not to eliminate the cancer she already has (like traditional chemotherapy tries to do), but to prevent the disease from progressing. There’s only a certain chance it will work with a given patient and it has to do with whether the person has a certain gene mutation. Thankfully, it’s working for Anna. In fact, it’s working remarkably well. Anna probably has 80 or 90 percent of her pre-cancer energy level and is putting weight back on and getting her awesome bushy red hair back. She still has a nasty cough that kicks in at least once a day, unfortunately, but it’s much better than it was a year ago. The cancer on her right thigh (which was eliminated last summer via traditional chemotherapy) is still gone. The tumor in her left lung is still large and obstructing the entire airway into the lung. The side effects of Tarceva are pretty mild. It causes fairly significant rash and acne on Anna’s face and neck. It also causes occasional gastrointestinal problems. But Anna is living with those side effects pretty well and has various creams and medications to help lessen the side effects.
The downside is that the cancer almost always builds up a tolerance to Tarceva and then progresses. At that point there probably aren’t any good options. The doctors usually resort back to traditional chemo to buy a bit more time. Some people have been on Tarceva for years, but for most people, it works for 9-12 months or so (33% survival rate at 12 months). Since Anna was in such excellent health prior to her cancer diagnosis, we’re hopeful that she’ll be on the long end of this. There are also currently trials underway for a drug that works on a similar mechanism to Tarceva’s, but is “irreversible” (i.e. can hold off progression of the disease indefinitely).
Anna did have a CAT scan about a month ago that had us very scared. It indicated the cancer was already progressing again, but after a consult with her extremely competent Dr. Einhorn, we were assured that the original interpretation of the scan was in error and that the cancer was not progressing yet.
So we’re living in what I’ve come to call a “renaissance of normalcy.” The kids go about their lives normally - having playdates and sleepovers and school and camps. Anna and I are living pretty normally too. Anna is still on disability from work, but is doing well enough that she’s keeping all the kids home for the month of June and doing daily trips to the pool along with bowling, park outings, and more. She’s also going to South Carolina to visit her brother and family for the entire month of July, hanging out on the beach and otherwise enjoying the summer. I’ll be there for the first and last week of that. I can’t wait. The beach is addictively rich. It’s actually been a bit surreal how nice things have been, given how bleak our family’s outlook was last spring and summer. It makes regular daily life that much sweeter. Every soccer game and trip to the ice cream shop and homemade story (I’ll have to blog about Prince and Marlena soon) and sleepy reading-on-the-couch session and trip to the pool has been made that much more sweet due to just having Anna here still.
Many of you have been extremely generous, sending us money to help pay for our household helper - Kim. Please accept our many, many thanks for this. It has allowed Anna to enjoy much more time with the kids and has also allowed us to enjoy more time with one another - we even have a date night every few weeks! Kim has helped us keep up on laundry and dishes and cooking and pickup and this has been a wonderful gift, given that Anna’s time may still be short. If the worst does come, I know that I’ll definitely look back on this spring in particular as one of the most enjoyable times of my life.
