As Good As it Gets

Hodgkin's lymphoma is one of a handful of cancers that, even in its later stages, has a very high survival rate (~90% or better) …
Most patients who are able to be successfully treated and thus enter remission generally go on to live long lives.
Wikipedia citing the New England Journal of Medicine

When my niece, Eve, called to tell me she had cancer, she began with the good news:
If you have to have cancer, Hodgkin’s is the best because it has a 95% cure rate.
The diagnosis (mixed cellularity, stage II, bulky) arrived a month before Eve & Michael’s wedding.
Rather than a honeymoon, Eve started ABVD chemotherapy.

She knew it would be tough, but with such good numbers she decided to take the chemo, get it done, and get back to life as a newly wed.
She also added several adjunct therapies: intravenous vitamin C, a strict organic diet and detoxification protocols.

But, a little reading should have given us a heads up:
…the failure-free survival (FFS) and overall survival (OS) rates at 5 years were only… 75% - 85% [ABVD treated]…
A long-term follow-up of this study over 15 years has recently been published, demonstrating a 45% - 50% progression-free survival rate and a 65% OS rate.
Journal of Oncology, 2002

Eve relapsed from her ABVD treatment within two months.
Her doctors then explained that about 30% of patients have recurrence.
They suggested more chemo, an ICE regime, followed by stem cell transplant.
(And, oh yes, the transplant protocol has an 80% chance of destroying your fertility. You might want to check into that.)
“Then, she will be cured,” her mother said to me.

Meanwhile, I had found some different words:
We assessed late mortality in 854 individuals who had survived 2 or more years after autologous hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) for hematologic malignancies…
Overall survival was 68.8% …at 10 years, and the cohort was at a 13-fold increased risk for late death…when compared with the general population.
Blood, 2005

Are you depressed yet? Don’t be.
That isn’t my intention. I am just providing background.
I thought we really did our homework before Eve began her ABVD.
I thought we’d covered all the bases.
Eve’s relapse was a stunner from which we had to regroup and think things through again.

During that hard process, I discovered that there seems to be a serendipity and synchronicity in this process that we’re going through.
I’ve come to realize that, “This is as good as it gets.”
And I don’t mean that as a version of “the cup is half full.”

Rather, I have come to realize Eve is uniquely and blessedly positioned for this challenge.
She has a PhD in pharmacology from the University of Georgia with an emphasis in the nutriceuticals involved in inflammation. In her day job she is a consultant to physicians practicing functional medicine.
Her father, a PhD in Medical Science, is a leader in the development of cutting edge tests for functional medicine. He’s on the editorial boards of of the journals Alternative Medicine Review and Integrative Medicine.
Her mother is a lioness of a woman ready to rip through any barrier standing between her child and life.
Her husband is rock steady with gentle love and total support.
Her grandmother is a Reiki master.
And, I can help out too.

I can do the leg-work through the literature, review the latest research.
I have a PhD in molecular genetics, a researcher in microbiology, and have practiced mediation for over forty years (which explains my other blog).
Eve has also asked to me help her go deeper spiritually, to help her get her mind in the best state to support healing.
And so, we are proceeding as a family.

We are not experts in cancer or lymphoma.
But, we are learning.
And who better prepared to take the challenge on: a core of PhDs with access to the latest science and all the motivation in the world.
We’re in a unique position to bring together healing knowledge in a new way.

The purpose of this blog is to share the information we discover.
I am not suggesting that you do as we do.
But, perhaps you’d like to know.

Some of what we learn is pretty sobering.
Some discoveries make us cheer and pump the air.
Through it all, we are finding a new appreciation of the love that binds us all together.

And that truly is, As Good As It Gets.