Taking care

There’s nothing to say about today’s chemo session.  It was uneventful, exactly like two weeks ago.  After working a little and trying to read, I slept through most of it.  Before I dozed off, the nurse gave me some advice on skin care.First of all, she said I was looking good.  Many patients have much more serious skin problems than I do.  They have pustules all over the face, down their necks, and sometimes on the rest...

First impression

Ten days after the beginning of yet another therapy, the third one now, I can draw a first conclusion.  Things are happening.  The drugs are doing something.  I can’t say anything about their action against the tumor, but the side effects are clear and as expected.My nose looks like Boris Yeltzin’s after a particularly boozy day.  It’s big, ruddy and doesn’t seem to fit my face.  The skin on either side of the nose is irritated.  It has grown a lawn of tiny pimples.  Squeezing them out – a laborious and painful...

Perambulations

Our journeys through life are strange ones.  Decisions we take or events that occur around us often have only a small effect on what happens to us.  We might not notice the subtle changes in our lives or only realize their significance later when looking back from a very different place.  Daily developments are often like the slow heating of water that the frog – to his eventual detriment – does not perceive.It was six years ago to the day that Flucha and I rode bicycles along a river in the southwest of Germany whose name I had...

Fountain of youth

Today I started the third chemotherapy program.  It’s very similar to the first two.  The main ingredient is still 5-fluorouracil, which damages dividing cells by messing with DNA replication in a way that’s not fully understood.  Fasting convinces healthy cells to go into a deep sleep.  5-FU should thus only harm cancer cells, which can’t keep from growing.  So far, this hasn’t worked as well as I had hoped and, naively, expected.The difference today is the antibody.  Going by the trade name of Vectibix, it binds...

Restart

It is quite easy to get used to fasting.  It is equally easy to get unused, if there is such a word.  I last ate 24 hours ago, and I’m not liking it one bit.  As always, I’m not hungry, but I’m already irritable, and I can’t wait for this to end.  Before my three-week break, I breezed through the first day of fasting without any discomfort.  Now I have two and a half days without food ahead of me, and I’m questioning the wisdom of it.  Eating is good.  Enjoying food is good.  Depriving myself of it might...

First anniversary

I almost missed an anniversary.  Yesterday a year ago, I headed to a doctor I didn’t know – chosen because his surgery is in the building next to where I work – to have my strange feebleness on the bicycle, the football pitch and the stairs up to my desk on the fourth floor explained.  There was also the strange issue of recurrent dull pain in my guts.  I expected nothing serious.Exactly one year ago tonight, I underwent the world’s longest ultrasound, given without even a hint of what I’m sure the doctor suspected.  Later I...

No celebration

Today was another day of truth, in a way.  I had an appointment with the oncologist who will be looking after me after the trainee doctor who was responsible for me up to now left to continue her training in a different hospital.  The topic of conversation was the PET-CT scan from last Wednesday and the conclusion we can draw for the continuation of my therapy.First off, the scan confirmed what the CT scan a week before had already indicated.  The tumors in my lung and liver have grown a bit.  Nothing dramatic, but clearly visible. ...

Immunotherapy

What triggered me yesterday to ponder my lack of scientific curiosity was a pair of papers published in the magazine Science two weeks ago.  I subscribe to Science and scan the contents every week.  Nevertheless, these two papers eluded me.  The only reason I noticed them is that they popped up in my regular search of recent high-profile publications containing protein structures solved with the detectors I sell.Both Antitumor activity of a systemic STING-activating non-nucleotide cGAMP mimetic and An orally available non-nucleotide...

Third PET-CT scan

I haven't written a scientific post in about two months.  With the resources I have and my training, I should do better.  I should read more, think about what I read, and post my conclusions. I will surely learn something and might pick up something unexpected.  Maybe I'll find something that gives my therapy a much needed boost or nudges it into previously unexplored territory.  On the other hand, it's always a long way from an exciting research paper to a proven therapy.  With this thought in mind, I got distracted, and...