Current Update

As these shorter, darker days hurtle us towards the close of 2014, it seems time to give an update. Just how am I staying alive these days? And what are my next tricks, if any?

Since late June of 2014 I have been doing several days of chemotherapy every other week. I am on a cocktail called the Bruckner Protocol that employs a varied mix of chemo drugs (often off label meaning FDA approved drugs but not approved for my form of cancer) in lower dose combinations that intend to intensify results without the toxicity. It has shown some success with hard to treat cancers. Using the protocol with recurrent ovarian cancers shows short-term results but there are challenges maintaining disease stability. It is no magic wand.

The doctors at the clinic are confidence inspiring in their relentless capacity to utilize the latest science to keep patients stable. Stability means a lot when you have untamed, terminal cancer. (Remission would mean more.) Drs Bruckner and Hirschfeld were pleased to hear that I not only had already started immunotherapy prior to arriving at their clinic but also that I was waitlisted for a next step immunological trial to open. I needed the Bruckner Protocol as a bridge to keep me alive. That was June 23^rd.

I completed four treatments at the Bronx based clinic in NYC, a hefty commute, transitioning to Marin Specialty Care in early August.

I am just recovering from my seventh treatment in Marin bringing me to a total of eleven 31-hour cocktails.

Marin Specialty Care became my new home when no Oregon facility was willing to treat me. (Thanks Oregon!) I had heard of Marin Specialty Care from the same woman who had initially presented the Bruckner Clinic as an option to track. Inbal was further down her relentless path with this disease when we met. With a young son to raise and a passion for life she was willing to try all options. Inbal blended zeal with research. She reported on the Bruckner Protocol with a journalist’s skill. For two years I saved her notes. When my cancer surge arrived in June I knew exactly where I was headed, and, in fact, flew off to the Bronx within a week.

Inbal lived in the woods near Oakland, CA. She chose Dr Jennifer Lucas as her oncologist, commuting the hour to Marin Specialty Care. Dr Lucas gave an initial no to Inbal when she requested the Bruckner Protocol but when asked to reconsider, Dr Lucas did, saying to me, “Who was I to say no. She and I both knew that I had no other way to keep her alive.” It is a rare oncologist that can set aside traditional doctrine and agree to a more daring protocol led by the patient. Dr Lucas watched the protocol both work and not work for Inbal. (Inbal died this September.) The clinic used the protocol on other hard to treat patients availing themselves of the free advise of Dr Hirschfeld in the Bronx. I arrived in August of 2014 as their first patient to fly in to their small 7-chair facility but patient number 9 on the Bruckner Protocol. Their entire team had expertise.

It has been an ambitious treatment period. Every two-week period I have three/four days in treatment/travel, recovery is a rather fierce three – five feeling lousy days (during which I moan and repeat, “oh my goodness” a lot) and then I have my rebuilding period in which I have daily health appointments and while my physical body is feeling better, my internal blood work is the weakest leaving me in a state of malaise. It is hard.  (14 days. 4 days treatment/travel, 5 days recovery, 5 days rebuilding.)

An additional challenge is maintaining a former life! My most vibrant health days are in Marin. There my body is in the best shape of the two-week cycle. Volunteers drive me to the airport, fly me by small plane to Marin, new volunteers scoop me up and bring me to my host family. I am fed and loved and dropped off by the 8 a.m. start of the chemotherapy drip. I am finally unplugged from my chemo pump 31 hours later to rush out the door to the driver who gets me to the Angel Flight, which brings me home. The love and dedication of these volunteers floors me. Their motivations fascinate me and, independently, they have become quite a social circle for my few good days each cycle. The fact that my new home is sunny and mild year round doesn’t hurt. My California days are nice.

My Oregon friends wonder though. I return sick and discharged and barely recover before departure. In Oregon, I am largely a missing person.

Where’s Marcy?

All this effort initially showed great promise but back in September we got the first indication that the cancer is working around the therapy. Various tinkering is being tried, timed well as my body refuses to endure additional doses of some drugs. Oxaliplatin replaces Carboplatnum. Avistan is dosed when the stars or protein levels in the urine align. I get every infused anti-nausea med known and yet still, I endure the nausea, the nausea, and the endless nausea. Until one morning it is gone and much of my memory of the darker hours.

What is next? Just this week the University of Pennsylvania released the new T Cell Depletion Protocol that I have been on the waiting list for since June. The first woman will be accepted in January, with a new woman started each month with dose escalation every third patient. When will I be called? Will my weakened body still qualify? And can I keep my cancer calm until that moment?

I think I can. That’s what this whole six-month slog has been about. For now I count down to my next few spa dates in Marin, hoping my new friends are well and the sun will be out. That is far enough into the future for me.

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