The perfect storm
By Jaime
July 9, 2010
As a person of science, it can be hard to be a person of faith, to paraphrase the oncologist Jerome Groopman. When someone comes back from the brink of illness, some people say it is a “miracle.” And that may be. But what about all those people, all those kids, who do not come back form the brink? Were they not worthy of a miracle? Did God forget them? No, of course not. But occasionally, something happens that has me thinking, well I’ll be damned. Maybe it’s a miracle.
| The combination of a specific cancer composition, drugs, radiation, surgery, patient and oncologist all work together to create this perfect storm… |
A good friend of mine, 28 years my senior, had a recurrence of breast cancer last year, after 17 years of being in remission. When her cancer came back, it metastasized to her chest wall and breastbone, with a visible tumor sticking out from her sternum. She had her ovaries removed, had radiation, went on Arimidex and then went through radiation again. She texted me last week to tell me that her latest PET scan showed NED, or no evidence of disease. No evidence of disease. In a woman with Stage IV breast cancer. This just does not happen. Her oncologist believes she is in the two percent of breast cancer patients who have a complete response to treatment. She is over the moon, as am I. Neither of us expected this; in fact, we’ve had honest conversations about what Stage IV cancer means and the limitations it might bring.
For me, as someone in the health professions, this is the kind of thing that shows me that sometimes, things do work out. Although initially it felt like a miracle, I have come to think of this as something like a perfect storm. For some reason, for her type of breast cancer, the surgery, combined with the radiation and medication, all worked together to culminate in eradicating disease. Does this work for everyone? Of course not. Would this have worked if her cancer was caught a month later? Maybe. But sometimes, things come together and medicine works like it was meant to. The combination of a specific cancer composition, drugs, radiation, surgery, patient and oncologist all work together to create this perfect storm, resulting in destruction of the cancer. And if you get to witness this, it’s a beautiful thing.
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