It's January now. Snowy, cold, January. I looked back at her caringbridge page the other day - at all the hope, all the energy, all the determination that she had. Now she is just tired and getting through each day. She is worn out. I worry about that. Does being worn out affect her prognosis?
I'm not so angry anymore. I think I'm worn out too.
Now, I'm thankful for every day with her. Even when she is difficult and cranky and overwhelming.
About 100 days to go. As this gets harder and harder, the need to reach that 100 days gets ever more urgent. She needs her life back.
But I can't deny that as it gets closer, the anxiety and the dread creep in. Meg has a significant risk of relapse. They really don't know how to cure cancer - they only know how to kick the shit out of it and hope that your body figures out how to keep it away.
What I didn't realize before - so many cancers happen because of a chromosomal abnormality. A gene mutation, or translocation. Just because you kill all the existing cells, it doesn't mean that the problem goes away and that the screwed up gene goes away.
Science hasn't figured out yet how to fix the damn gene.
The best hope they have for now is to teach your body to attack the messed up cells right away and kill them off. The body's immune system needs to recognize the cancer cells as enemies as soon as they are created, and learn how to kill them right away.
So they know how to block a receptor on the mutated cells - to slow down or prevent their reproduction. The hope is that's enough to get the body going.
But genes are smart. These mutants want to live, and they figure out how to get around the blocker.
We have to do better with this stuff.
