No chemo for Laurie: the pros and cons.

Here's the scoop. I met with my oncologist today and found out that I will not be going through chemo this time around. I know, I know... a collective YAY was just heard around the world. But here's the thing - this is a mixed blessing. It's a very, very, very good thing, in that I won't be THAT kind of sick. I won't lose my hair or puke my guts up all day long for weeks. (Yay!) But it's a bit of a bummer, because the reason I won't be doing chemo is that it just isn't effective on the type of cancer/tumor that I grow. (Boo!) Studies they've done on cancer patients with liposarcoma show mixed results after chemo treatments, and my doctor isn't willing to put me through chemo on the off chance that it might prevent recurrence. I'm incredibly grateful for a doctor who cares about who I am too much to put me through treatments that would ravage my body just to see if chemo "might" work. At the same time, it's hard to know that chemo is a weapon that I don't have in my arsenal. It's one of the most well-known cancer treatments, and it just won't work for me. That's hard. And frustrating. (Because, frankly, all I can think right now is that six weeks of radiation the first time around didn't stop it from coming back. And now chemo's off the table, too?) It's frustrating to me that my body went and created such a random and little-known tumor/cancer (twice) that they don't know what to do with it.

As grateful as I am that I will not have to go through chemo and the horror that those treatments are, this is a real and scary and hard thing I'm living with right now. I'm being as positive as I humanly can be, and I like to think that I'm doing a fairly decent job of it. It's hard to balance hope with reality. And yet, I have faith that someone, somewhere, will know that there's something I can do (or take) to give my body a leg up in not only recovery, but in ensuring my body's receiving the best post-op care it can, so I'm never in this position again.

At the end of the day - at the end of this very hard, emotional day - I am hopeful. My doctor referred me to a clinical trial/research facility in North Scottsdale. He thinks they may have some new medication there that would be beneficial, and I'm willing to try anything - esp if there's a specialist there who may know something that my general oncologist doesn't, just because of the rareness of what I have. (And how much better would it be if that specialist were single, in his mid-late 30's and looking for a wife who is a cancer survivor? ... I'm just saying that I'd like both a cure and someone who'd pay the bills around here. If we could please kill two birds with one stone, that would work for me.)

As always, stay tuned to Cancer Central for future updates. You know I'll give you the info as soon as I have it.