Linda and her support team
Summer, 2005
Here is another useful overview of the current state of our
war on ovarian cancer. We have a long
way to go – many trenches to storm – but we are making progress.
Friday, May 31, 2019
Wednesday, May 29, 2019
OVERVIEW
Linda as a working girl
Probably early 60s
Every so often it is useful to embrace a summary review of
your subject. If you agree, you might
try this:
For those of you who seriously engage with my blogs, little
here will be genuinely new, but this article may help put it all together. It (the article) is somewhat tough going. My way of dealing with similar material
is to read through quickly first, making a list of all the terms and concepts I
don’t entirely understand. Then, using
Google, I look for definitions/explanations that might help. However, often this leads me back to Google to confront
other bio-medical mysteries and code words; at times I am lead so far from
my original inquiry that I forget what it was!
But sometimes, it helps. So give
this little essay a try.
Sunday, May 26, 2019
NEW RESEARCH
Delicious, but don't eat too many of them
Well, I’m back from my brief visit to Linda and Paul’s
beautiful farm in western Wisconsin, and ready to resume tormenting you with
news from the research front in the war on cancer. But first: while on the farm I participated in an important discovery. It transpires that certain fields in that farm are the breeding ground of an unbelievable profusion of
delicious morel mushrooms. Morels grow
around here (NW Washington), but collecting them requires much walking through
dense woods, and an eagle eye. Here, you
are lucky to find a half-dozen per hour.
On the Kelly farm they pop their little heads up every few feet, and beg
to be tossed in the sack. Truth be told,
I ate so many I got a wee bit sick.
Anyway, science went on in my absence. I particularly want to call your attention to
an article in the Daily Bruin – presumably the UCLA student newspaper – about some
research recently published in the prestigious journal Nature Genetics. The gist:
There are 25 known regions in the genome, glitches in which
can contribute to the probability of contracting ovarian cancer.
Every woman, especially women known to suffer from OVCA,
should have her genome sequenced. For one
thing, modern cancer treatment schemes are influenced to a considerable extent by
whichever genetic mistake is responsible.
You can inherit your genetic errors as readily from your
father as from your mother. You don’t have
to have ovaries to pass on OVCA.
We are making progress: the death rate from OVCA currently
is about six per 100,000 women, whereas about 2000 it was more like nine. Of course, that’s still six too many.
So, read this brief, clear and valuable article:
Monday, May 13, 2019
MAY 22, 2019
Happy Times
On May 22nd
my beloved wife, Linda Joyce Beck, will have been gone for eight years, taken
away by one of the most terrible disease a woman can face – ovarian
cancer. As you almost certainly know,
the general purpose of this blog is to help combat that dreadful disease. I will be away from my computer on May 22, so
I will post my usual blog on that anniversary a few days early.
What I want
to do is to share with you something written by C.S. Lewis shortly after his
young wife died. Lewis, as you may know,
was an important Oxford intellectual about the middle of the last century. Among
other things, he was recognized as an expert on theological subjects. I have
been reading Lewis a bit lately, trying to get squared away about what you
might call “last and final things.” He
hasn’t been of much use, partly, I am afraid, because I am badly put off by his
writing style. Lewis is famous for
having created the Narnia saga. He wrote
a good many other books, very serious books, for which (in my opinion) he is
justly not famous.
But, anyway,
shortly after his wife, the writer Joy Davidman, died, Lewis undertook an
analysis of grief. To paraphrase, he
decided that his grief was selfish: he grieved, not because of what had happened
to Joy, but because he didn’t have her any more.
Well, that
does not apply to me. Certainly part of
my grief is selfish; I want Linda here, with me, now. But by far the greater part of my grief
concerns the pain I feel at having witnessed her suffering, physical and
emotional – and having been totally unable to save her. And I am bitter because
she was denied the last few decades of life.
I stand in awe of her courage. Often I have a hard time not being angry with
God for what He put her through; to the extent that I sometime hope He really doesn’t exist.
And out of my grief has grown a compulsion to fight back against
whatever it was that took Linda away – I hope it was just a bit of very bad
luck, only a biological process gone badly astray. I do not want to regard it as part of any
Plan.
But, anyway,
Lewis wrote something about his bereavement which I would like to pass on. He likened his marriage to a ship driven by
two engines. He writes “…. The storms
were over, but they had taken their toll.
The starboard engine was gone …. And the port engine had to toil on
alone to bring the ship to safe harbor.”
That’s a paraphrase on my part, and not a skillful one, but it is how I
feel.
Sunday, May 12, 2019
STATINS, AND MY MOM
Linda and my Mom, 1982
It apparently has been established that OVCA patients who
also take statins have a significantly better overall prognosis:
This is important, for sure, but my real reason for posting it is to
show you a picture of my Mom, Hazel Beck, on this Mothers’ Day, 2019. She put up with a lot from me; I wish I had
appreciated her, and told her so, while she still was alive.
Friday, May 10, 2019
HOW IT IS
Probably 2008
As always, I hope this will prove to be useless information
for all of you, but,, ,,
The link below was written by a woman who is battling
recurrent ovarian cancer. One purpose of Myrl'sBlog is to suggest questions to put to your oncologist, if you are unlucky
enough to need one. This little essay
hits the high spots, more effectively than I could ever hope to do.
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
PROGRESS, BY GOLLY!
Evelyn, at a Cordovan, AK, mud party
The human
genome was completely sequenced for the first time in 2003. It cost $400 million and had taken 13 years. This first reading of the “blueprint for life”
was heralded as opening a new and promising era in medicine. Of course,
the blueprint – more an instruction manual – consisted of nearly five billion
“letters”, so initially it was all but impossible to “read”, let alone used to
mend imperfections.
Well,
according to Dt. Collin’s latest NIH blog
sequencing now
can be completed in under 24 hrs and, moreover, scanned and analyzed for
trouble-spots in a few more hours, using AI (artificial intelligence). This technique is being used on newborn babies
who show signs of serious genetic disorders.
In some cases, cures can be affected.
Progress, for sure.
Of course,
expense must be considered. Dr. Collins
implies that it isn’t prohibitive, but doesn’t toss out a number. For my part, saving even one baby is worth an
awful lot.
Tuesday, May 7, 2019
OVARIAN CANCER DAY
Abu Beckr
al-Beaumonti politely reminds you that Wednesday, May 8th, is World
Ovarian Cancer Day.
Give ‘till
it hurts!
Saturday, May 4, 2019
SEVERAL THINGS
Evelyn, the Alaskan ice maiden!
New research
involving tens of thousands of women pinpoint 34 genes which, if disabled by
mutation, contribute to the probability of contracting ovarian cancer. While the discovery that there are so many
potential bad actors lurking in the genome may be discouraging, at least
knowing which they are facilitates concocting a personalized counterattack in the
event that cancer actually arises, as well as informing effective screening
procedures. One thing seems certain:
eradicating OVCA is going to require lots of data combined with computer smarts
– and it ain’t going to be cheap!
I hope none
of you ever need to know this stuff, but in the spirit of “better safe than
sorry”, Survivornet offers you a summary of the treatment you probably will
undergo in the event that OVCA makes its unwelcome advent in your life. Note that much of this was precisely what
Linda underwent, minus the “maintenance” (during remission) part. I would add that one should also pester one’s
oncologist about ongoing clinical trials; the pace of improvement in OVCA care
is improving rapidly, and you don’t want to miss out.
Finally, Dr.
Collins of NIH provides us with a comprehensible summary of how genome studies
are being used to underlie efforts to create individualized therapies for various
cancers. Dr. Collins uses our language uncommonly
well, so in general anything he writes will be worth reading. This little essay is unusually useful. In a way, however, it is a bit discouraging;
despite heroic and, certainly, extraordinarily costly curative protocols, “success”
appears to be measured in prolonged remission.
The word I am looking for – cure – still is nowhere to be found.
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