Anna's Book of Days

Dr. Hurvitz told us today that the results of our study will be published next June, and that she'll be able to share the preliminary results with us next January after the last trial patient (#444) has her surgery. If the Arm B (test) patients have equivalent or better outcomes than Arm A (control) patients, Roche will probably then submit to the FDA for approval of TDM-1 for early-stage patients. I will be so excited if this treatment becomes available to everyone - the amount of suffering that would be avoided blows my mind. 16 down, two to go!

One year ago today I was diagnosed with breast cancer. In that time I have had four surgeries, fifteen cycles of chemotherapy, 181 doses of tamoxifen, five biopsies, four mammograms, two PET scans, one MRI, six echocardiograms, and countless exams, ultrasounds, blood draws, and secondary medications. I have shed many tears and lost many hours of sleep. When I was first diagnosed, I couldn't believe that it had happened to me. Ridiculously, I kept thinking that I wasn't the kind of person who gets cancer. But the terrifying truth is that breast cancer can happen to anyone. It is the most common cancer in American women; about one in eight women in the U.S. will develop invasive breast cancer in her lifetime. An estimated 232,670 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed this year. And breast cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death in women, after lung cancer. The good news is that breast cancer survivorship has tripled over the last 60 years, and there...

The idea that creativity and suffering are inextricably linked - that creativity in fact demands suffering - is age-old and widespread. Aldous Huxley wrote in Antic Hay, "Can an artist do anything if he's happy? Would he ever want to do anything? What is art, after all, but a protest against the horrible inclemency of life?" Artists from El Greco to Gaugin to Marvin Gaye have echoed this thought, and the list of creative geniuses who have tortured themselves in one way or another goes on almost endlessly. I know exactly when I first grasped this concept. It was 1993, and a wonderful cello teacher named Milly took me and a friend to see the French movie Tous les matins du monde. It's about a famous viola da gamba player, Sainte Colombe, who shuts himself away from the world after his wife's death, and tragedy ensues. I am sure there was much about the movie that went over my 13-year-old head, but I do remember thinking as we left the theater that perhaps Saint...

15 down, 3 to go! I'm 75% done with my adjuvant treatment, and 5/6 done with my overall treatment. The end, which once seemed so far off as to be invisible, is really in sight now. The last couple days my skin has been drydrydry, which is not fun - but in the scheme of things, it's not so bad.  I'm going to see a dermatologist tomorrow to see if there's any industrial-strength moisturizer out there that they can give me.