Lympho Bob

Cancer Cell Communication

2012-02-16T14:15:00.000-05:00

Science Daily has yet another interesting piece about cancer. This one is called "New Clues about How Cancer Cells Communicate and Grow."

Basically, the tumors send out bits of RNA -- one of the building blocks of genetic material -- that sends signals to the body to create a hospitable environment for the tumor to grow. They signal the body to, for example, create blood vessels to feed the tumor.

Tricky little buggers, these cancer cells. Manipulative, too.

Some types of treatments may block these signals, so that the instructions don't go through. Others, though, will act on the cancer cells, but not block those signals.

This research doesn't necessarily lead to answers, but it does bring up some new pathways to explore. Which is all we ask.

Sh*t Cancer Patients Say

2012-02-13T10:45:00.000-05:00

A cancer patient named Woody Roseland put together a video called Sh*t Cancer Patients Say," a parody of the very popular series "Sh*t Girls Say," which has spawned a huge number of parodies and imitators online.

The premise of the "Sh*t ____ Say" videos is simple: in about 2 or 3 minutes, the videos show quick clips of whatever group is being parodied, saying things that members of that group usually says. Some of them are spot-on funny, some are mean-spirited, most rely on (sometimes unfair) stereotypes. Few are safe for work. But a lot of them are amusing. (Like this "Sh*t Boston Mothers Say" version -- but all of that does not include my own mother.)

Anyway, the Cancer Patients version was done by an actual cancer patient, while he was in the hospital for a chemo treatment. So some of it can be a little hard to watch. But the comments below the video show that it hits home for cancer patients, with lines like

"At least now I can stop worrying about getting cancer."
"Oh, Benadryl, how I love you...." (I could relate to that one)
"Wait til they hear about this on CaringBridge" (a blogging site for cancer patients -- I could relate to that one, too)
"Breakfast burrito was a mistake..." (that one's a little graphic....)

So watch "Sh*t Cancer Patients Say" if you dare. But understand my admiration for Mr. Roseland, a young man who is facing his cancer bravely, head on with humor.

Fasting

2012-02-11T12:53:00.001-05:00

Interesting piece from Science Daily called "Fasting Weakens Cancer in Mice." It's a kind of follow-up to something I wrote about a while ago (maybe last year), about a scientist who had completed some lab experiments that showed that fasting might help chemo be more effective. The study described here takes it one small step further and looks at whether it would work with mice. Turns out it does.

Cancer cells don't behave like regular cells -- we know that. But one of the ways they behave differently is in response to a lack of food. Regular cells will go into hibernation, essentially, when their food supply is cut off. (This is one reason why dieting is hard -- your body fights the lack of food by forcing itself to need less food.) Cancer cells, however, are hungry little buggers, and instead of slowing themselves down, will try different things to keep their food supply going. Their strategies backfire, and they kill themselves.

So says this research. Like lots of promising research, it works great in mice, but hasn't been tried yet in real people.

But it certainly seems intuitive: fast while receiving chemo, and you protect your own cells while giving a boost (that is, helping destroy) the cancer cells. But the human body is an unpredictable thing -- even less so when there's cancer in it. But wouldn't it be great to have a reasonably simple boost to chemo?

Clinical Trials

2012-02-08T10:47:00.000-05:00

A few posts back, I linked to an article by Mary Elizabeth Williams, a writer fro Salon.com who is dealing with a melanoma diagnosis, and writing about it. As I said in that post, I think Williams is one of the best writers out there when it comes to writing about cancer patients' experiences, as well as cultural and social issues related to cancer.

Yesterday, I happened to catch just a couple of minutes of an interview she did on the radio show Talk of the Nation. The 18 minute interview is now available online, which I'm happy about, because I wasn't able to hear the whole interview. She speaks for a few minutes, and then responds to a few callers.

Williams focuses especially on her experience with a clinical trial, one that involved immunotherapy, and has been very successful for her.

I recommend you listed to the podcast (it packs in quite a bit in a short time), but I'll highlight a few things that stood out for me:

In Williams' first article about her experience, she calls herself a "lab rat," and tells a couple of stories about how she did feel like she was not treated as a person. One doctor in particular came into her room with some interns, and didn't refer to her at all, but kept discussing "the tumor." Later, when she suggested having the melanoma removed, this doctor said to her, "We need the tumor," trying to talk her out of having it removed because it would ruin the trial. It amazes me that doctors can be so insensitive, though I've certainly heard plenty of stories. I have to say that, for the most part, I've been lucky with the health professionals I've seen.
A caller was concerned about his wife joining a trial, thinking that the experience Williams described was evidence that doctors in trials don't care about the patients. Williams made it very clear that doctors in trials are very excited about prolonging and saving peoples' lives. I think this is a common misconception about trials. But, really, the researchers' job is to keep you alive, isn't it? Someone mentioned a trial to me recently, and said, "With my luck, I'd get the placebo." But it doesn't work that way -- not for cancer studies. If it's a comparative study, you might get the new treatment, but if you don't, you don't get a sugar pill -- you get another accepted treatment. They want to see if the new one is better than the old one. No one is going to withhold treatment and just let you die.
Williams also made it very clear that she asked not to see the "lab rat" doctor anymore. While a trial does involve giving up some freedom of choice, the patient is still empowered and in control of many things. Patients should never give up the power to say No.

Finally, a caller with breast cancer discussed her reasons for not going into a trial, which were certainly valid. When Williams and the host asked how she was doing, she said, "Well, I'm still going through chemo. It hasn't been 5 years, so I'm not considered a survivor yet."

To her I say: Oh, lady, you a survivor. The National Cancer Survivors Day Foundation says that anyone who has been given a diagnosis and is still alive is considered a survivor. If you make it home from the doctor's office, you are a survivor. You've made it as far as you have, empowered yourself to make difficult decisions about your own treatment, worked with your family to make sure you have been doing the right thing -- how can you not call yourself a survivor?

I like Williams' focus on empowerment, and I wish she'd been able to bring up something like that to this caller. I'll forgive her, though, because she's such a good writer...

(Potential) New Treatment

2012-02-06T14:08:00.001-05:00

It's been a while since I highlighted a potential new NHL treatment (it's not like they come along every day, after all), but this one seems worth highlighting.

It's called AVL-292, and it is in the class of treatments called "Btk Inhibitors." There are a couple of others already out there, CAL-101 probably being the better known of them.

A Btk Inhibitor works by blocking development of Btk, Bruton's Tyrosine Kinase. Btk is an enzyme, and while no one knows exactly what it does, it seems to play a role in B cells' development. (B cells are a type of white blood cells that go haywire in many lymphomas, including Follicular NHL.) The Btk inhibitor works by blocking (or inhibiting) Btk, and thus disrupting the B cell's development. No Btk = no B cell = no malignancy = no cancer.

As explained in the article, "The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and Avila Therapeutics Enter Partnership to Accelerate Development of AVL-292 For Patients with Cell B Malignancies," AVL-292 is the latest Btk Inhibitor to be developed. What is significant from this piece is that The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society is partnering with the drug maker to speed things along. I trust the LLS, so I'm going to assume that their support is an important validation.

A different piece gets more into the data from the phase 1 trial (very limited number of patients). I know CAL-101 has been a big help to a number of people in the support group, so I hope AVL-292 is an improvement on that somehow.

World Cancer Day

2012-02-04T09:19:00.000-05:00

Sorry I'm a little behind on posting. It's been a busy week, both at work and with various kids' activities.

So I'm back at a good time -- today is World Cancer Day.

The point of the day is to raise awareness. But it's not just some static awareness, like, "Hmmm...cancer....yeah....sucks....." and then you're done. We're not just slapping a colored ribbon on the day and calling it a success.

If you go to the link above, you'll see a video from Stand Up to Cancer and the folks from around the world who are organizing this day. They're asking you to DO SOMETHING. Something besides buying a particular brand of air freshener just because it has a pink package.

Make a pledge today to do one thing, make one change, big or small, to help prevent cancer in your life.

Quit smoking.

Walk 10 minutes a day. Get a little more exercise.

Add just one more serving of fruit or veggies every day. Slice a banana into your cereal.

Make that doctor's appointment you've been putting off.

Get a cancer screening -- a mammogram, or prostate exam, or colonoscopy. Not fun, but do it anyway.

And I know, everyone's busy. Even small changes take time and effort. Heck, I've been too busy to post a blog entry -- I understand. But two years ago, every Friday for six weeks, I would go into work early, leave by 9:00am, drive for a half hour to the oncologist, sit in a chair for four hours and drift in and out of a Benedryl haze while a monoclonal antibody was pumped into my arm, then go home, grit my teeth through a stomach ache side effect for an hour, and then take a nap. It was a full day.

And guess what? That was considered an easy, mild treatment.

Take the time now. Make the change. It will be time and effort well spent.

Have a Happy World Cancer Day. And make it a happier tomorrow.

Someone Else's News

2012-01-31T18:54:00.000-05:00

Salon published a piece today by Mary Elizabeth Williams called "I Have Your Results."

Williams is a regular columnist for Salon, often writing about cancer -- the general topic, and her own experiences with stage 4 melanoma. I think Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Emperor of All Maladies, might be the best writer about cancer from a doctor's perspective that we have. But I nominate Williams as our best writer from a cancer patient's perspective. (Modesty would forbid me from nominating a certain someone else.)

Williams does a nice job of describing the emotional experience of having cancer, while also giving a larger scientific or cultural perspective. For example, in this piece, she discusses clinical trials and immunotherapy while also giving us a glimpse into getting a CT scan ("I had been at MSKCC just that morning, guzzling sickly sweet, room-temperature liquid and holding my breath inside the CT scan machine") and waiting for its results, and connecting to other patients, feeling their joy and pain, because you know just what they're going through.

This particular piece provides a nice mini-drama, the kind that good writers can pull off. There's a link at the end that will let you read more of Williams' stuff, which I recommend.

Tarzan

2012-01-29T13:35:00.000-05:00

I got some very sad news this weekend: one of my friends in the support group died. Her name was Mary, but she went by the handle "Tarzan."

I don't usually write about sad things in this blog. I've always seen it as a place for hope and optimism. But I need to write about Mary, so you'll just have to excuse me this one time.

Mary and I were both diagnosed with Follicular NHL at about the same time, and we joined the support group within a few weeks of each other. In her introductory post, she explained why she was calling herself Tarzan: her oncologist had told her that the good thing about fNHL was that there were so many treatments, and more on the way, that there would always be something else out there to try. Like for Tarzan swinging through the jungle, there would always be another vine to grab onto. Mary's explanation really spoke to me, and it became a great source of comfort for me during those difficult first few months after I was diagnosed. (I even wrote about it in the blog.)

It's rare that you can feel someone's passion and energy just from their writing, but you could feel it with Mary's (and I'm someone who knows and appreciates writing). Her words just radiated light and warmth.

Mary and I started sending private messages back and forth to each other every now and then, mostly short notes of encouragement. She was always very hopeful. the about nine months after we both joined, Mary was around a lot less. She wrote to me to say that she was still checking in with the group, but devoting her considerable energies elsewhere, mostly focusing on her husband, kids, and grandkids. She lived in Colorado and loved the outdoors, and I think she wanted to spend less time in front a computer and more time in front of a trout stream with her fly rod.

A few months later, Mary checked in again with an update. She'd had a heart attack around Christmas. She was expected to recover just fine, and it certainly never slowed her down. She and I continued to write to one another occasionally. She used to call me her "Little Bro."

Early last year, Mary found out she had lung cancer, and as I checked in on her, she would still respond with her hope and positivity, but it didn't sound like things were getting better. She switched treatments a couple of times, and each time she was sure that the next treatment was going to do the trick.

The online tributes to her are many and heartfelt. Apparently she was just as active and encouraging in her online lung cancer support group as she was in our lymphoma group. And I certainly wasn't the only one she corresponded with privately, as I came to find out. She touched a whole lot of people.

And the irony of it all is that while we met in a lymphoma support group, her fNHL didn't really physically affect her at all. She watched and waited for four years.

I don't think I can step back right now and intellectualize all of this, and write about how great it is to be a part of an online support group, or write about the importance of...I don't know what. I'm feeling right now, more than thinking.

Mary had a blog called "So Much More" (which I never knew about -- like me, she never mentioned her blog to the whole support group), and "so much more" was kind of her catch phrase -- there's so much more to life than cancer, so much more to do and try, so much more love to give.

I'm going to end with Mary's words. Another member of the support group who was very close to Mary posted some quotes from her notes to him. He didn't think she'd mind if he shared them, and I'm going to take a chance and make the same assumption, that neither one of them would mind if I shared.

This is a blog about hope, after all.

"Our lives are so short on this earth, it doesn't matter in whatever way we live it;
I want others to learn to be conscious of every moment...
enjoy life and try to teach others to enjoy it...
If we're 95 or 30 there is so much more: things to learn, to laugh about, to cry over,
to experience, to see, to feel and hear and taste.
Learn to savor each sense of all we are -- and can help others to be."

WHO grades

2012-01-27T14:16:00.001-05:00

This month's British Journal of Haematology has an article titled "Clinical Significance of the WHO Grades of Follicular Lymphoma in a Population-Based Cohort of 505 Patients with Long Follow-Up Times."

As titles go, it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue like Mourning Becomes Electra, but it does have some significant findings. First off, a word about WHO (World Health Organization) grading systems: for Follicular NHL, each diagnosis is classified by a stage (where in the body the lymphoma is located) and a grade (a measure of how aggressive the lymphoma is). The grading classifications have changed over the years, but the most recent system assigns each lymphoma as grade 1, grade 2, grade 3a, or grade3b. This study tries to help solve the controversy over the 3a/3b distinction.

The researchers found, in examining 505 biopsy samples, that grades 1,2, and 3a can be considered indolent (slow-growing) and incurable. Grade 3b, however, is found to behave much like Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma, a much more aggressive NHL. It also found that, unlike the other stages, 3b is curable for many patients, assuming they are treated early and aggressively, with anthracycline-based treatment (like CHOP).

This seems to back up one way of thinking about the 3a/3b distinction, the way that treats them as being different. There are still others who believe 3a and 3b are more alike than different, and that probably won't change.

It seems to me that there will be some other important things that come out of this.

First has to do with treatment. In addition to 3b, like DLBCL, being successfully treated with CHOP, the study also found that 3a responds well to Rituxan, like the other indolent lymphomas (grade 1 and 2). Put those two together and I think you'll have even more movement away from CHOP as a standard treatment for fNHL, unless it is the more aggressive 3b. It will probably be more and more reserved as a treatment for transformed fNHL.

Second, I think the study will provide even more evidence for distinguishing between fNHL types on a genetic level. The authors point out that the genetic change that creates fNHL (chromosomes 14 and 18 switch with one another) is found in 73% of 3a cases, but only 13% of 3b cases. On the other hand, other chromosomal changes are more likely to be in 3b. There's lots of science there, but the point is, if you look at the diseases at the smallest level, 3a and 3b seem to be distinct. I see this confirmation as important for personalization purposes: the more we know about what separates the two types, the more likely we can tailor effective treatments to the patients who exhibit those properties.

Of course, as someone who is mostly grade 1 with a little grade 2, this study doesn't directly affect me. But I do think it has some important implications for the Follicular NHL population as a whole.

RESORT Video

2012-01-25T08:28:00.001-05:00

The good folks at Patient Power, who do such a fantastic job of providing information about cancer and other diseases, have put up a new video from last month's ASH conference. The video features an interview with Dr. Brad Kahl from the University of Wisconsin's cancer center, on the results from the RESORT study.

I discussed the results of this study about a month ago; it's been recognized as one of the major pieces of news to come out of ASH.

The RESORT study is the one that determined that, for most patients, giving Rituxan as needed is preferable to Rituxan maintenance. That is, after initial treatment, it's probably better for Follicular NHL patients to hold off on treatment until it is needed, rather than having Rituxan every 6 months to keep the lymphoma at bay.

Dr. Kahl is very open about the study: he admits that there is little difference between the two approaches, and that it was be very possible to look at the data and come to the opposite conclusion.

He also says that, of course, that decision is entirely dependent on the individual patient. For example, he says doctors have to measure a patient's coping strategies and abilities -- how mentally or emotionally prepared they are to watch and wait. As I've said before, I was OK with the treat-as-needed approach that Dr. R recommended, just as I was OK with watching and waiting. My temperament would allow it. But some patients need something more aggressive, fulfilling their need to do something. There are so many right answers when it comes to fNHL -- it's a curse sometimes, but it can be a blessing, too.

As usual, Patient Power does an excellent job of getting a researcher to discuss difficult subject matter in fairly simple terms. All credit goes to Andrew Schorr, who is such a fantastic host, interviewer, and patient advocate.

Cool HS Student

2012-01-22T16:38:00.000-05:00

CBS News last week reported on a high school student from California named Angela Zhang who might have come up with a cure for cancer.

How's this for a science project? When she was a freshman, she read lots of stuff about bioengineering. Over a couple of years, she developed a theory about cancer cells and nanotechnology, and eventually got the chance to devise an experiment to test it out. Turns out her theory was right.

Her experiment involved mixing a cancer medicine with a polymer, which would cover the medicine. The polymer is then attached to a nanoparticle (an extremely tiny particle -- I've discussed this before), which then attaches to the cancer cell. These nanoparticles show up on MRIs, so the caner cells can be identified. Then, an infrared light is shone on the nonoparticles, causing the polymer to melt, exposing the medicine. The medicine is thus delivered directly to the cancer cells (since they have the medicine/polymer/nanoparticle attached to them) while sparing the healthy cells nearby.

The method has been tested on mice, with excellent results.
one of those promising nanotech methods that may prove useful in the near future. What they all have in common is an attempt at delivering some treatment directly to the cancer cells, in a wide and interesting variety of methods.

Angela won a national science contest for her project -- $100,000 for first place. She bought a bunch of purple shoes with some of the money, which is kind of awesome, since purple is the color for cancer awareness (though that's not why she chose purple).

Well done, Angela.

PBS Cancer Video

2012-01-20T14:40:00.000-05:00

PBS's News Hour has recently been running a series on cancer. The piece that I found most interesting is called Cancer Treatment: Are Personalized Molecular Profiles in our Future, available as a video clip 9about 9 minutes long).

I've mentioned personalized treatments quite a bit; they really do seem to be the future of cancer research. I think this video does a nice job of explaining how personalized treatment (especially those that target genetic abnormalities) actually works.

One segment involves interviewing a woman who had her tumor cells implanted in a mouse. As new treatments become available, they are first given to the mouse, so doctors can study the tumor's reaction to the treatment before they are given to the patient. Pretty fascinating.

The doctor that is the main subject of the video says he envisions a day when cancer patients can go to a pharmacy, give the pharmacist a genetic profile of the tumor, and receive some treatment right there. That would be a wonderful thing, indeed.

Bald Barbie Update

2012-01-18T14:52:00.000-05:00

Controversy over Beautiful and Bald Barbie, a Facebook page that I had described a few days ago, devoted to encouraging Mattel to issue a bald Barbie doll. While the creators of the FB page aimed the Barbie at young girls who have hair loss due to cancer treatments and other causes, it was clear from the 100,000 people who Liked the page that such a Barbie would find an audience with adult survivors as well.

The new controversy comes from, of all place, the American Cancer Society website, specifically from a blog post written by Andrew Becker, the ACS's Director of Media Relations (in other words, ironically, their head public relations guy). On Friday, Becker wrote a blog post addressing the Bald Barbie issue, and he was very much not in favor of it. He likened the Bald Barbie to rubber bracelets and other attempts to "raise awareness," which he finds hollow. He believes that the money spent on such a doll would be better donated to research, not "awareness" campaigns.

But one paragraph really struck a chord -- a very bad chord:

Childhood cancer is exceedingly rare. I would also argue that cancer is rare among the age group of women likely to have daughters young enough to play with Barbies. Women have about a one in 50 chance of developing any kind of cancer before the age of 40 . Which brings me to the claim that bald Barbies can help improve the self-image of little girls who are faced with having lost their hair, or seeing their mothers lose their hair. If they are mass marketed, many of these dolls will end up in the hands of girls who luckily aren’t likely to be touched by cancer in themselves or their mothers. But could they end up being terrorized by the prospect of it in a far outsized proportion to their realistic chances? There is no reason to create this sort of fear. It’s why we don’t see advocates calling for lightning strike dolls.

Lots of people -- lots of people -- took issue with the comparison of childhood cancer to lightning strikes, and the idea of a "lightning strike doll" was seen by many as belittling the issue of childhood cancer. There's also the suggestion that kids would be "terrorized" by seeing someone bald from cancer treatments. (That's not exactly what he's saying, but it's how a lot of people who are dealing with childhood cancer interpreted it.)

Becker has removed the original post (though it was copied and commented on by lots of bloggers, including this one), and has issued an apology. He said that his intention with the post was to "raise questions about activism and social media around disease," rather than make it seem like the ACS didn't think children with cancer mattered.

Wow. So much going on with this.First of all, I'm stunned that a PR professional would write something so...dumb? Unaware? I'm not really sure what the word is that I'm looking for. I have no idea what the relationship is between the ACS and the Susan Komen folks, but I'm guessing it isn't very good. His comments seem to be an attack on those who promote "awareness" over everything else, especially research. What a very strange way of making that point, though.

I find it pretty interesting, too, that he wrote the post on Friday, which is when I wrote my own comment on the Beautiful and Bald Barbie Facebook page. But I wrote mine late enough to see what kind of reactions people were having to the Barbie. I don't know when Becker wrote his, but he clearly hadn't seen the kind of support, and the kind of reasons, people were giving to the cause. It went way beyond simply kids with cancer. Barbie, as I noted Friday, is a symbol of all kinds of things, and a bald Barbie plays with that symbolism in really important ways. He missed all of that.

Finally, I find it fascinating that a blogger -- someone steeped in social media -- had so little understanding of how social media works, and how it can be useful. The Public Relations expert had 100,000 things to think about, had he looked at the Facebook page. He would have had all kids of opportunity to gauge reaction. It's an incredible case study in the way social media works -- and how it can go horribly wrong.

Happy Cancerversary To Me

2012-01-15T17:13:00.000-05:00

Four years.

Hard to believe.

I'm titling this "happy," even though my wife says it's crazy to even think about this day in those terms. When I woke her this morning, I asked if she was going to wish me a happy cancerverary. "Oh God," she said. "You're going to want to celebrate, aren't you?" But, like I tell her every year, we're not celebrating That Day. We're celebrating TODAY, and the other 1459 days that have come and gone since That Day.

One thousand, four hundred and sixty days? Wow. I've thought about cancer every day, for 1460 straight days. I'm more than half way to being the Cal Ripken of cancer.

It's true -- I do think about it every day. I can't not think about it -- I check in with my support group every day, and on those days when I can't, I think about not being able to. I write in this blog every two or three days, and plan out what to write on the others. I think about cancer every day. That doesn't mean I think about having cancer - that's walking on the edge of victimhood, and you all know how I feel about the term "cancer victim." It's only on days like today that I really focus on having cancer, and what it all means.

****************

Last weekend, very much unlike this frigid weekend, we had one of those rare, upper-40's January days, and I took the dog for a nice, long walk. I put my iPod on "shuffle," and just listened to whatever came up. One song that came up early in the walk was "Superman," by Five for Fighting. It's a nice song:

The lyrics are a monologue from Superman. He kind of laments having to keep up the appearance of being a Man of Steel, and in a vulnerable moment, admits that he's really just a man in a silly red sheet. I remember downloading this song a few months after being diagnosed, because some of the lyrics really hit me:

I wish that I could cry
Fall upon my knees
Find a way to lie
About a home I’ll never see

It may sound absurd…but don’t be naive
Even heroes have the right to bleed
I may be disturbed…but won’t you concede
Even heroes have the right to dream
And it’s not easy to be me.

Up, up and away…away from me
Well it’s all right…You can all sleep sound tonight
I’m not crazy…or anything…

I could -- and can still, in some ways -- feel Superman's pain. I think it's a Guy Thing; we're not supposed to be vulnerable, at least on the outside, because there are too many people depending on us, and a show of vulnerability ("I wish that I could cry") is going to trickle down, and it's all going to crumble. That's how a lot of men feel in general, and lots of cancer patients feel that way even more so. But really, there's nothing Super about us. I think the end of the video kind of bears this out.

That's what I was thinking about as I walked the dog and listened to my iPod. I feel a little bit less of that these days, less of a need to be a Man of Steel. But that vulnerability, and a fear of being -- or seeming -- vulnerable never really goes away.

*****************

I've always loved music, and I've always found a way to use music to help me emotionally, whether it's to build myself up, or revel in a good dark day, or just help me understand whatever it is I'm feeling, but don't fully understand. Sometimes I'll latch onto a song and not know why. Sometimes it's just because I like the song, but sometimes it's because it's helping me work through something. "Superman" was like that.

It's not on my iPod, but another song from my early cancer days came into my head as I listened to "Superman." It's "The Rainbow Connection," sung most famously by Kermit the Frog, but covered by a whole bunch of people. For a while, I was listening to this almost incessently. It started at my daughter's dance recital, about five months after I was diagnosed. She was not quite 7, but she was at an age when she and her dance classmates were no longer babies. No more knock-knees and pot bellies. They danced a ballet piece to Kenny Loggins singing "Rainbow Connection":

And even though they were only six or seven years old, they were graceful, with their long skirts and flowers in their hair, and their arms flowing as they danced. I watched her and, in the dark, tears streamed down my face. Part of me just marveled at how much she was changing, so quickly, and part of me cried, five months after being diagnosed, wondering how many more times I'd get to see her dance, or dance with her, not really understanding yet what this disease was all about. And part of me cried because...I didn't know why.

For weeks after that recital, I listened to "Rainbow Connection" over and over again. And one verse kept haunting me:

Have you been half asleep? And have you heard voices?
I've heard them calling my name.
Is this the sweet sound that calls the young sailors?
The voice might be one and the same
I've heard it too many times to ignore it
It's something that I'm supposed to be...

And I'd wonder, over and over again, What am I supposed to be? If cancer changes who you are -- and it's pretty damn hard to be the same person once you hear those words from a doctor -- if I'm someone new, what am I supposed to be? If those voices are calling my name -- and never mind who the voices belong to -- what are they calling me for?

"Superman" asks the same question, even if it doesn't come right out and say it. If I'm not really Superman, if it's all just appearances, then who am I really? If I get called upon to stop a bullet or a train, what's going to happen?

I spent a very long time, when I was first diagnosed, trying to answer those questions. Heck, I spent a long time trying to formulate those questions. I didn't even know which questions I was being asked....

********************

Four years later, I still don't have answers to those questions.

The difference, now, is that I don't ask them as much, because I know the answers don't really matter. The answers will come to me, sometime, somehow. Or not.

And I guess that's what's changed over four years, not so much about me, but about how (and why, and when) I think about having cancer. My response isn't so emotional anymore. I've learned so much about cancer, and about Follicular Lymphoma, that I don't need to be emotional. I can reason things through, understand where I am and where I might go next.

So, the answer to What am I supposed to be? is irrelevant.

The more important question is, What's next? I mean that in a couple of ways. First, I know that there's a next phase to my cancer, and I don't dread it. I have plans for dealing with it. Lots of plans. And second, I mean, what's next in my life, apart from cancer? I'm living my life, making long-term plans, not worrying about whether or not I can possibly carry them through.

And my music now isn't about asking questions, or worrying about answers. If I listen to Cancer music at all, it's got a very different focus. A few weeks ago, someone in the support group asked for suggestions for songs that inspired. This is the one I offered:

The song isn't about asking questions -- it's about taking action.

It's about getting to the next.

Cancer Barbie?

2012-01-13T17:28:00.000-05:00

A fascinating controversy has been brewing on the internet for the past few days: the idea of creating a bald Barbie doll.

The whole idea gained some publicity a few days ago (at least, that's the first I had heard of it) when the Amarillo Globe-News published a piece called "Mattel Pressured to Produce a Cancer Barbie." I think the title is a little strong, but it describes a Facebook page called Beautiful and Bald Barbie! Let's See if we can get it Made, created by some folks who want Mattel to make a bald Barbie doll, "to help young girls who suffer from hair loss due to cancer treatments, Alopecia or Trichotillomania." They feel like the dolls could help girls with medical hair loss cope better, and they also think Mattel should create scarves and hats to go with it.

I'll be honest -- when I read the article yesterday, I wasn't all that excited about the idea. I certainly get that girls would like to have a doll that they can identify with (I can see that in my own daughter, just with the regular dolls she has always enjoyed playing with). But it seemed more gimmicky than anything, I guess. I couldn't imagine it would really have that great an audience.

But then this afternoon I read a piece on Salon.com by Mary Elizabeth Williams called "Why Barbie Should Go Bald." I really like Williams as a writer, especially as someone who writes about cancer from a patient's perspective. She brings up some excellent points about the Beautiful and Bald Barbie, particularly that Barbie is such a powerful symbol -- something that I, as a man, just didn't get.

In the brief time I have been writing this post, the Facebook page has added about 800 Likes, with just under 100,000 total. Clearly, I underestimated the number of people who would be interested in such a doll. It's obvious that a Bald and Beautiful Barbie would go a long way with not just little girls, but probably with lots of cancer patients, especially women, who grew up with Barbie and see her as that kind of symbol of perfection that Williams talks about. A Barbie who is bald -- and yet, still unavoidably perfect -- would be very powerful indeed.

The big question is, would Mattel ever see it that way? Would they be willing to gamble with Barbie's image?

I like to think this is not something that's going to fade away in a week. It will be fascinating to see how Mattel reacts (beyond the polite reaction that Williams reports on). Their reaction will say a lot about a lot of things: cancer, our cultural notions of beauty, and the power of social media. Stay tuned....

Nodes of Gold

2012-01-11T08:03:00.000-05:00

Bad news out of England on Monday: Tony Iommi, lead guitarist for the band Black Sabbath, has been diagnosed with "early stage lymphoma" (nothing more specific than that), and has begun treatment.

Sounds like it's time for a new installment of Nodes of Gold.....

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It's been a while, so I'll remind you: Nodes of Gold is a (not really any longer) regular feature in Lympho Bob, highlighting the life and triumph of someone famous who was diagnosed with lymphoma of some sort. F. Scott Fitzgerald said that the rich are just like you and me. And indeed, they are -- sometimes, unfortunately, they get lymphoma. Past Nodes of Gold honorees include Mr. T, actor/comedian Arte Johnson, golfer Paul Azinger and football player Joe Andruzzi.

And now, Tony Iommi.

Iommi is lead guitarist for Black Sabbath (one of my favorites when I was younger), a band probably best known for having Ozzy Osbourne as its lead singer from 1969 to 1977, then again in 1997. Sabbath has had 22 members over the years, but Tony Iommi has been a constant -- the only member of the band that has stayed with them for all of their 33 years. That's loyalty.

Sabbath's lead guitarist, Iommi is considered a pioneer in heavy metal guitar, creating riffs like this one:

In fact, in 2004, Guitar World magazine named him the greatest metal guitarist of all time.

He also, very briefly, spent some time as guitarist for Jethro Tull, pre-Sabbath.

But despite his loyalty, he did have some difficulties. Like, for instance, in 1992, Iommi was arrested while on tour. Bandmate and pal Ozzy Osbourne bailed him out -- or so Ozzy claimed later, when he sued Iommi for the $75,000 he posted for him.

And a personal connection: a couple of years ago, I was experiencing a strange dizziness, especially in the mornings. I didn't know if it was lymphoma-related, and I eventually had an MRI, which turned out to be negative. The doctor figured it was probably stress-related, caused by lots of jaw-clenching, which is one of those side effects of having cancer. Anyway, the Ear doctor did a whole bunch of tests, and it was also determined that I had some upper-register hearing loss. We agreed that this can be directly attributed to listening to so much Iommi-fueled Black Sabbath, through Radio Shack headphones, when I was 13. Especially this song:

So, Tony Iommi, I'm very sorry to hear that you've joined the club that no one wants to be a member of. I'm sure it's little consolation, but you do now officially have Nodes of Gold.

Hope the treatments go well.

Visit with Dr. R

2012-01-09T15:14:00.000-05:00

I had a good visit with Dr. R today. No changes -- everything looks good.

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Actually, there was one change, but it didn't involve me.

The practice is no longer independent, but is now affiliated with/run through Yale-Smilow Cancer Hospital. This is not necessarily a big deal (I can, for example, get my scans anywhere I want, not just at Yale), and the doctors and staff are all the same at the office. But there were some very obvious small changes: I have to get an ID bracelet when I arrive, just as if I would if I went to the hospital; it took them about 15 minutes to call me in for bloodwork (gone is that nice sign that said, "If you have been waiting for more than 10 minutes, please come and tell us at the desk"); and when they took my weight, it was in kilograms, not pounds. Also, the computers were all down because Yale was installing new software.

The change-over came on January 1, so it's only been a week under the new management, and they're naturally working out some kinks with all of the new procedures. I go back in May, so I'll withhold judgement on the changes until then....

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Anyway, Dr. R said my bloodwork was "perfect" -- no signs of any problems. The physical exam revealed nothing wrong. And I'm feeling fine. So we're good for another 4 months.

The visit with Dr. R was a little different, though -- he seemed slightly more harried, maybe a little rushed. We didn't have quite as long a chat about our families -- that sort of thing.

He did give me a quick update on possible future directions for treatment, when I mentioned it's been just shy of 2 years since I had the Rituxan. He told us there was a "second-generation Rituxan" that was now being used. It's also an anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody. I knew just what he was talking about -- Ofatumumab -- but I didn't want to be obnoxious about it all and say the name, which he clearly couldn't remember. So he danced around his own forgetfulness, telling us that there were a bunch of Rituxan alternatives out there, with some slight variations ("Yes," I thought to myself, "they are humanized monoclonal antibodies"). He told us, still dancing around the name, that some of the Rituxan alternatives were derived from non-human sources. At this point, Isabel also frustrated with his not being able to remember stuff (or remember he was talking to a cancer research nerd), mouthed to me "mice!" without him seeing. He finally remembered that the source for these antibodies like Rituxan was mice, which made me and Isabel both smile. He also mentioned that there were some other antibodies being developed, some that targeted other CD proteins, like CD22 ("Yes," I thought, "that would be Eprituzamab").

I'm going to chalk up Dr. R's forgetfulness to the changes in the office management, which seemed to be throwing off everybody in the office in some way. And I want to point out again how good I was to not show him up with my own knowledge of current treatment options, and in not giving him the URL for this blog so he can learn more about all of this stuff on his own.

The bottom line is, I'm still healthy, everything looks good, and we can breath easy for a little while, anyway.

Betsy's Cancerversary

2012-01-07T14:15:00.000-05:00

I'm going to celebrate someone's else's 10 year anniversary today: Betsy de Parry's. Today is 10 years since she's been diagnosed with lymphoma. More importantly, as she announced on Facebook two days ago, she just had a clean CT scan, and is now "disease free for 9 years, 3 months and 26 days. But who's counting?"

Regular readers know who Betsy is: author of the book Adventures in Cancerland, producer of the PBS series Candid Cancer, Lymphoma Goddess, and author of a column about cancer on AnnArbor.com. Her most recent column, "A Decade After a Cancer Diagnosis: Musings on Life," features her announcement about her good scan news and her cancerversary.

Betsy reflects a lot on some of the lessons she's learned in 10 years, and one really speaks to me today (as my own cancerversary approaches): "Cancer may leave our bodies, but it never leaves our lives."

She's talking about the bodies and lives of fellow cancer survivors, of course. She quotes some friends' wisdom on the same topic:

As a friend of mine says, "When your world has crashed before your eyes, it's hard to remember that anything could be something other than cancer."
Another adds, "We're scarred by our diagnosis. Every ache is a recurrence. Luckily, most of the time, reality is not as bad as our fears, but we become worry warriors."

It's essentially watching and waiting for a lifetime, isn't it? Those same little fears, aches, bumps, worries, they diminish over time, but never really go away.

The question is, what do you with all of them? What do you change? How do you deal?

Betsy has her own answers, which you can read about in the column. I'm still figuring out my own. I'll try to give you an update on January 15.

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Like Betsy, my cancerversary is preceded by a check-up. Not a scan, just a check-up. I see Dr. R on Monday. I'm not anticipating anything newsworthy. But I'll give a report on Monday afternoon or evening, so feel free to check back.

The Year in Lymphoma

2012-01-05T21:09:00.000-05:00

I resisted doing any kind of "year end list" this year -- either a list of my own or linking to a list of someone else's -- because I saw someone say on Twitter that he'd kill a bunny for every year-end list he saw on a blog.

But I couldn't resist linking to this one: it's the "Musings on Progress Against Lymphoma" written by Karl Schwartz, President of Patients Against Lymphoma, an organization that does a huge amount for Lymphoma Patients, through advocacy and education. They've benefited me in so many ways, directly and indirectly, and Karl is a master at explaining difficult things and putting them into a broader context. So I'm happy to share a link to his look back at 2011 and look ahead to 2012.

Karl discusses a number of treatment breakthroughs and milestones that took place last year. I'm kind of proud of myself for having discussed a bunch of these myself in Lympho Bob -- I have great respect for Karl and PAL, and it's nice to know that I can see the same significance that they have seen. Among Karl's significant picks for the year:

"Bendamustine-R is supplanting R-CHOP as initial primary therapy for the indolent lymphomas." Significant for me, especially, since at the moment, this seems to be Dr. R's choice for treatment if/when I need it again (not that I anticipate needing it in the foreseeable future). There's still nothing close to a consensus among practioners for preferred first-line treatment for Follicular NHL, but B-R is certainly getting a lot of attention lately.
Rituxan-as-needed showing the same results as Rituxan Maintenance. As Karl says, "The findings of this CER study (about 12 years after the approval of the drug!) should substantially reduce the cost of health care (an increasing concern in our times) while decreasing the amount of treatment we are exposed to in order to achieve the same result. Importantly, using less Rituxan may also reduce the incidence of infections, which can impair our quality of life of course … and is also expensive to treat." No additional comment from me, other than to point out that I'm on the Rituxan-as-needed train....
Finally, "Meanwhile, the place of radioimmunotherapy (RIT) remains uncertain." As Karl points out (and as I have reported over the last 4 years), RIT is effective but underused for a number of reasons. But Zevalin keeps chugging along, chipping away at the resistance that doctors and insurers have displayed.

I also agree with many of the items on his Wish List for 2012: encouraging patients to participate in clinical trials; hoping for some quick and intense testing of new treatments; and greater understanding of how lymphoma works, patient by patient, so treatments can be individualized. I'll let you read his full list.

So, thank you Karl for all of your fine work. When I encounter a new Lymphoma patient, I send them to PAL first. It really is the best site I know of for basic and advanced information about our disease.

As a nonprofit, PAL accepts donations. Feel free to give to help them continue their mission. (They were one of the organizations that I suggested people donate to in lieu of giving me money on Pay A Blogger Day last year.)

(By the way, thanks to everyone who paid me on that day.)

(Yeah, that was sarcasm...)

Coast Soap

2012-01-03T11:32:00.000-05:00

This morning, as I was picking up some manly-smelling soap for my 14 year old, I caught sight of something I hadn't seen in a long time in my grocery store: Coast Soap.

As I lamented in Lympho Bob, way back in March 2009, the Dial Corp stopped making my favorite soap, the classic, original Coast, replacing it with something called "Coast Pacific Force" -- definitely not the eye-opening scent that I had enjoyed for so long. Even worse, they just stopped selling it anywhere near me (within 100 miles of me, according to their web site at the time). I had to rely on a sister-in-law, and on my mom, to keep me supplied with the new stuff, even if it wasn't as good as the original scent.

I wasn't alone in being so upset. Missy Ward, in a now classic YouTube video and blog post, expressed her disappointment in the changes to Coast's scent. [Obligatory cancer connection: Missy Ward raises funds for breast cancer research.] This was followed up by Moe Picante's video rant (be warned -- he's passionate, and he swears a lot) about the new Coast soap. There's a Facebook page called Bring Back Coast Original Soap. Clearly, I'm not the only sicko who misses The Eye-Opener.

So when I looked at the package in the grocery store this morning, I was even more thrilled than I was by its mere presence. It said, "Throwback -- Celebrating 35 years!" I mean, there's even an exclamation point! How much more exciting could this get!?"

But something...seemed...wrong....

I didn't buy the soap. I figured it would still be there the next time I was there, and I still have about 40 bars of Pacific Force from the last time my mother cleared out a store shelf for me.

Instead, I went home and did some research.

It turns out that the only thing that is "thrown back" is the packaging. It's not the old, original scent Coast. It's just the same, new Pacific Force scent, in 35 year old packaging.

That's sad. And I'm upset about it (though not as upset as this guy who is filing a false advertising claim against them).

I appreciate my grocery store carrying the new stuff, because it's still better than the alternatives. But that doesn't mean I'm happy.

The War on Cancer

2012-01-02T19:57:00.000-05:00

Happy 2012.

I thought I'd start the new year by looking back -- it's been a little over 40 years since then President Nixon declared a "war on cancer," on December 23, 1971, increasing funding for research and bringing cancer into the national consciousness. It's been a heck of a fight, and while the war isn't over, we've clearly won some battles.

December 23's edition of "Science Friday," the NPR radio show, looked at the War on Cancer. (You can listen to the broadcast, or read a transcript, at this link.)

The guest on the show was Dr. Harold Varmus, currently the director of the National Cancer Institute, and winner of the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his cancer research, which showed how normal genes are transformed by carcinogens and thus cause cancer. In the broadcast, Dr. Varmus addresses a bunch of issues in cancer research that show how things have changed in the last 40 years.

For instance, Varmus discusses personalization, and the trend toward treating each patient's cancer as unique. He also expresses some excitement at attempts to use the body's immune system to fight off cancer, something that researchers were't very excited about until recently. He discusses this particularly in terms of the use of antibodies, which are the body's natural defense against invaders, and the success that researchers have had in using them. (He doesn't mention Rituxan specifically, but it fits into that discussion.) He mentions the treatment Ipilimumab, which messes with the body's suppression mechanism, allowing it to fight off cancer on its own. This treatment has been successful in about 30% of patients with melanoma.

He also discusses some other cutting-edge issues, like genome mapping and micro-environment studies, things that I've been reading a lot about and trying to report here.

Overall, it's a nice broadcast, touching on a number of current issues. But mostly it's a nice reminder of how far we've come in the last 40 years. My guess is that we'll make even more progress more quickly than we have since Nixon was president.

That's my wish for the new year, anyway.

Happy New Year

2011-12-31T11:47:00.000-05:00

It's the last day of the year, and I was going to avoid being all introspective and reflective (that will come in a couple of weeks), but then I saw this post written a couple of days ago from the blog CrazySexyLife. The blog is written by Kris Carr, author of a number of books under the "CrazySexyCancer" label, though the post itself is written by Dr. Lissa Rankin.

The post is called "10 Things I Learned from People Who Survived Cancer," and it's a nice way to end the year, I think. It's not too long a piece, so even though you have the link above, I'm going to reprint it here:

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When I interviewed women who had survived breast cancer for my art project The Woman Inside, I noticed that they all had one remarkable thing in common.

They had all faced down death and decided to live every day like it might be their last. And then they all beat cancer.

The more interviews I did, the more I noticed that these women were living differently than most of the people I knew who had not been diagnosed with cancer. Here’s what I learned from those survivor women. Learning these lessons changed my life, and I hope they’ll change yours.

1. Be unapologetically YOU. People who survive cancer get feisty. They walk around bald in shopping malls and roll their eyes if people look at them funny. They say what they think. They laugh often. They don’t make excuses. They wear purple muumuus when they want to.

2. Don’t take shit from people. People who survive cancer stop trying to please everybody. They give up caring what everybody else thinks. If you might die in a year anyway (and every single one of us could), who gives a flip if your great aunt Gertrude is going to cut you out of her will unless you kiss her ass?

3. Learn to say no. People with cancer say no when they don’t feel like going to the gala. They avoid gatherings when they’d prefer to be alone. They don’t let themselves get pressured into doing things they really don’t want to do.

4. Get angry. Then get over it. People who survive cancer get in your face. They question you. They feel their anger. They refuse to be doormats. They demand respect. They feel it. Then they forgive. They let go. They surrender. They don’t stay pissed. They release resentment.

5. Don’t obsess about beauty. People who survive cancer no longer worry about whether they have perfect hair, whether their makeup looks spotless, or whether their boobs are perky enough. They’re happy just to have boobs (if they still do). They’re happy to be alive in their skin, even if it’s wrinkled.

6. Do it now. Stop deferring happiness. People who survive cancer realize that you can’t wait until you kick the bucket to do what you’re dying to do. Quit that soul-sucking job now. Leave that deadbeat husband. Prioritize joy. They live like they mean it.

7. Say “I love you” often. People who survive cancer leave no words left unspoken. You never know when your time is up. Don’t risk having someone you love not know it.

8. Take care of your body. People who survive cancer have a whole new appreciation for health. Those who haven’t been there may take it for granted. So stop smoking. Eat healthy. Drink in moderation. Maintain a healthy weight. Avoid putting toxic poisons in your God pod. Get enough sleep.

9. Prioritize freedom. People who survive cancer know that being a workaholic isn’t the answer. Money can’t buy health. Security doesn’t matter if you’re six feet under. Sixteen hours a day of being a stress monster is only going to make you sick. As Tim Ferriss writes in “The 4-Hour Workweek,” “Gold is getting old. The New Rich are those who abandon the deferred-life plan and create luxury lifestyles in the present using the currency of the New Rich: time and mobility.”

10. Take risks. People who survive cancer have faced their fear and told it to go to hell. They know life is for living. Fear is powerless. And joy lies in taking risks. So go skydiving if you want. Bungee jump. Hang glide. Spend your savings. Live like you might die tomorrow.

Are you doing these things? Or are you waiting for cancer to test out how much you want to live?

Don’t wait for cancer, my love. Don’t tempt the universe that way.

Be brave enough to live now.

For more on how to optimize your life, visit owningpink.com.

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I like to think I do a lot of these things already (though that whole "taking care of your body" thing needs work -- that's a New Year's Resolution, I guess), but mostly it's a nice reminder for all of us, cancer patients and non-patients alike -- to live life with a purpose.

I hope you had a good 2011, and I hope your 2012 is even better, happier, healthier, and more purposeful. And if you suspect it might not be, start thinking now about how you might change that.

ASH Wrap-Up

2011-12-29T20:45:00.000-05:00

This isn't anything new -- just a kind of wrap-up of some of the significant stuff from the ASH conference earlier this month. The link features a video interview between two Lymphoma Rock Stars, Dr. Bruce Cheson, head of Hematology at Georgetown University Hospital, and Dr. John Leonard from Weil Cornell Medical College in New York.

Cheson and Leonard discuss some of the significant trends to come out of the ASH conference this year. Two of their discussions are relevant for Follicular NHL, and I discussed both of them earlier this month. The first has to do with Rituxan, and the role of Rituxan Maintenance. The significant study to come out of ASH questioned the necessity for Maintenance therapy (giving Rituxan every 6 months for two years after treatment), suggesting that a treat-as-necessary strategy would yield similar results, but without the expense, time, and discomfort of receiving it every six months.

The second significant trend that they point out has to do with the "love fest" surrounding GA-101, a monoclonal antibody that could be a replacement for Rituxan. I found this to be the more interesting of the discussions, given how the two doctors probe the ASH presentations. They question how comparable the GA-101 studies are to earlier Rituxan studies: they express some reservations about how successful the studies really were; but they also do point out that GA-101 holds some promise (and that it is one of about 10 anti-CD20 antibodies currently in development, which is good news if we're looking to improve on Rituxan).

Chasen and Leonard also discuss trends in research in some other lymphomas, but obviously, it's these two that stand out for me.

The link also has a written transcript of the video (which I read much quicker than the 15 minutes the video would have taken).

I think this pretty much wraps up this year's ASH conference. It was nice to see some of my own assessments backed up, at least in part, by these two men.

Post-Christmas

2011-12-26T11:08:00.000-05:00

We had a nice Christmas Eve and Day, spending time with family. Some highlights:

After Christmas Eve mass, my musician children gravitated toward the trumpter who had been playing with the choir. Turned out he, too, is a Boston University graduate. He and I reminisced about West Campus and hockey games, talked about all the changes to the campus, and then he revealed that his old roommate at BU had been Jason Alexander, best known as George on Seinfeld, but also known as Albert in Bye Bye Birdie (which meant more to John, being a Birdie alum himself).
After church, as we were driving home, we pulled over to the side of the road as we saw a fire truck coming at us, its light blazing and spinning. We realized soon that it was moving very slowly, and then realized that it was carrying Santa through the neighborhood. As the truck approached us, Catherine slid open the van door, just in time for Santa to wish her a Merry Christmas, and then to fire a handful of mini candy canes at her. Unprepared, she suffered a small candy-cane-induced concussion. But, with a sticky smile, she reported that it was worth it.
Christmas morning, after the gifts were opened, Isabel checked on the turkey to make sure it was completely thawed. Instead she found that while it was thawed, it was...well, we can skip the details. But we clearly needed a new turkey. Fortunately, our heroes made to the grocery store before they closed early, and bought a fresh turkey for half the price they'd paid for the original frozen one. A Christmas miracle, and a delicious turkey when all was said and done.

We're at a time in our lives when we no longer have the Christmas morning frustration of trying to remove dozens of twist ties to pry toys out of the packages. Our crisis this year was Peter dropping the mini SD card from his new cell phone and having to take a wing chair half apart to retrieve it.

Time chnages things. But so it goes. It was a happy time for all. Hope yours was as enjoyingly eventful as ours.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-24T06:24:00.003-05:00

It's Christmas Eve, and I've been saving some videos for just this occasion.

The first video features John and Catherine and their school band, playing "Believe" from the movie Polar Express. The two of them are easy to spot -- both are wearing Santa hats, John on oboe and Catherine on trumpet.

The second video features Peter's high school Jazz ensemble doing a big-band-inspired version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." Again, Peter's easy to spot -- front row, alto sax.

We're very proud of our musician children. They do truly bring us joy during this joyous season.

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.

Obinutuzumab

2011-12-22T11:01:00.000-05:00

A real quickie today, because I know I'm behind on posting:

Cornell's excellent blog, New Developments in Lymphoma, has a new post on Obinutuzumab, also known as GA101 -- a "new generation Rituximab." (I've seen it called both a second-generation and third-generation monoclonal antibody; they were wise to just avoid that issue altogether.)

As the post explains, results from several studies have been in the news lately touting GA101's success. I' a big fan of Rituxan (closing in on two years since I had it successfully), but I'm all for improvements to it.

Cannoli and Cancer

2011-12-19T08:21:00.000-05:00

The New Haven Register ran a nice article this morning about the good folks at Meriano’s Bake Shoppe in Guilford, called "Guilford Bakery Owners Want You to Have a Cannoli; It Might Help Cure Cancer."

The Meriano siblings sell t-shirts and donate the money to cancer research at Smilow Cancer Hospital, particularly to a researcher there who was kind and helpful to their father when he was a cancer patient.

The t-shirts are great; they say "Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli" -- a classic line from the classic film, The Godfather. (The line is the ending to a longer, more gruesome scene. I'll link to the 7 second version -- just enough to hear the line being said, without everything that builds up to it.)

The important thing is, the Merianos are doing great things. And I have one of their shirts, which a bought two summers ago at a farmer's market (along with a chocolate chip cannoli). So, for you folks in the New Haven area, I recommend both the pastries and the clothing. Either or both would make a great Christmas present for the Godfather fan in your life. And, of course, you'll be doing some good for cancer patients, too.