Monday, May 16, 2011

The reality of our world....

Today I got news about a couple of people from the brain tumor world. One of them was diagnosed about 6 years ago and was the first person who gave me advice when I was initially diagnosed. He had a recurrence in August. He then entered another trial which led to some surgical complications. From that point on it was a downward spiral that eventually took his life this past weekend.

The other is a friend who had her recurrence diagnosed around the same time as mine. The first clinical trial she was in didn't succeed and she was forced to find another trial and enter repeat surgery only a few months later. She was following in my footsteps in the Cedars-Sinai vaccine trial. This week, on her trip to LA to start the trial, she found out that her tumor had already grown back so fast that she can no longer enter the trial and needs to find a different approach to attack it.

I'm not entirely sure why I'm bringing this up now, besides the obvious fact that I really feel for Jim's friends and family and for Jackie herself and her friends and family. But part of me also sees this as another signal that optimism is important, but so is reality.

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