At long last the money we raised at the October fundraiser is in the hands of Matt van de Riji at Stanford. In the end we were able to give him and his team of researchers over $16,000! What a fantastic feeling! He was so thrilled with the gift and was blown away that we were able to raise so much in a single night. All the money is going to his research.
Matt and his colleague, Rob, gave me, Sharon and Susie Siegal (an other LMSer) a tour of the lab; we saw actual LMS (Lieomyosarcoma) tumor tissue in paraffin blocks (how it's stored when removed from the body) and we even looked at the tissue samples through microscopes. It's quite amazing how complex this kind of research is and it's all very interesting and amazing, but honestly so much of it is over my head, I am just happy that there're people who can wrap their minds around this stuff.
In layman's terms I am going to try to explain what Matt and his colleagues are up to with the research. Mind you, in a nutshell. Thanks to Sharon and others, Matt has many LMS tissues samples, 70, I think, and he was able to look at these samples and divide them into three subtypes of LMS in these three subtypes he found many targets, most notably a protein called CSF1. Targets are very important because if a cell has targets these targets can be potentially blocked with drugs. What is so exciting about Matt's research is that he not only found many target (his finding were confirmed by two other independent studies elsewhere) in these three subtypes of LMS, but he believes that there are existing drugs that will act as blockers, thus in essence starving the cancer cells from one of the foods that makes it grow.
I asked Matt what he would use our donation for and he said he wants to use it to move forward with the mouse xenograft studies, meaning he will injecting 8 mice with LMS tumor cells, 4 of them are the control group, no intervention, the other four will be treated with a drugs that he is hoping will stop the tumors. Mice studies are the precursor to human clinical trials, the whole process is slow, but Matt thinks that within two years his research could move into to a clinical trial.
I have been cursed with this horrible disease, in no way can I view myself as lucky, no one with LMS, or any cancer, can call themselves lucky, but meeting Matt and learning about the work he is doing I did feel lucky, actually it's much more than that, I have a deep gratitude ( a huge understatement) that this incredibly smart and devoted scientist is tirelessly working on the rare and obscure cancer I have. I speak for all of us living with LMS.
Be well,
Becca
Monday, January 25, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
checking in after a long time
Hi all,
I am happy to report that my latest scan, December 23rd, was clear, however there's something lighting up on the pet scan in the 7th rib, front and back, but the doctors feel it is related to the VATS (lung) surgery last year. I am off the gemzar since the beginning of November. On the health front things are good.
Over winter break we visited Boston for a few days, then went on to Vermont to visit my friend Sophie and her husband Matt. They live in an amazing co-housing community in north western Vermont. We had such a fun and relaxing and time. My brother Norman and his girlfriend Lauryn came from NYC to join us for a few days which was wonderful. We helped sophie make cheese, we made something like 260 pounds which will be marketed in nine months. The cheese is an aged cheese which tastes like parmesan, really yummy. Sophie and Matt's younger son Casey is just a bit older than Abby and they spent countless hours playing inside soccer, basketball, and sledding in the fresh snow just a few short steps from the house. I honestly can remember such a relaxing vacation. After 5 days in Vermont I went on to NYC with Norman and Lauryn and engaged in all the big city pleasures; museums, food and people watching. My last night there we went to a club which was just a few blocks from Norman's apartment, go figure, to see an old friend Steve's band play. Steve hasn't see this friend in almost 20 years, so it was fun to say hello for him.
On December 16th I had a procedure called a thoroplasty, I think this is how you spell it, probably, not though, to get my voice back to what it was before the vocal cord nerve was damaged during the aforementioned VATS surgery. All along I was thinking that this was a simple undertaking, given that I have so many major surgeries, I was going in with the idea that it was no big deal, and it wasn't really, but apparently, this type of surgery is very delicate and took 3.5 hours, holly cow! I was on some major "twilight" drugs with allowed me to be awake but not really present. The surgery involved pushing the damaged left vocal cord toward the right, and to get the placement just right I was asked to speak during the procedure so they could test the quality of my voice. My voice works really well and for the first time in nearly a year I don't have to strain to talk, yippi
best,
Becca
I am happy to report that my latest scan, December 23rd, was clear, however there's something lighting up on the pet scan in the 7th rib, front and back, but the doctors feel it is related to the VATS (lung) surgery last year. I am off the gemzar since the beginning of November. On the health front things are good.
Over winter break we visited Boston for a few days, then went on to Vermont to visit my friend Sophie and her husband Matt. They live in an amazing co-housing community in north western Vermont. We had such a fun and relaxing and time. My brother Norman and his girlfriend Lauryn came from NYC to join us for a few days which was wonderful. We helped sophie make cheese, we made something like 260 pounds which will be marketed in nine months. The cheese is an aged cheese which tastes like parmesan, really yummy. Sophie and Matt's younger son Casey is just a bit older than Abby and they spent countless hours playing inside soccer, basketball, and sledding in the fresh snow just a few short steps from the house. I honestly can remember such a relaxing vacation. After 5 days in Vermont I went on to NYC with Norman and Lauryn and engaged in all the big city pleasures; museums, food and people watching. My last night there we went to a club which was just a few blocks from Norman's apartment, go figure, to see an old friend Steve's band play. Steve hasn't see this friend in almost 20 years, so it was fun to say hello for him.
On December 16th I had a procedure called a thoroplasty, I think this is how you spell it, probably, not though, to get my voice back to what it was before the vocal cord nerve was damaged during the aforementioned VATS surgery. All along I was thinking that this was a simple undertaking, given that I have so many major surgeries, I was going in with the idea that it was no big deal, and it wasn't really, but apparently, this type of surgery is very delicate and took 3.5 hours, holly cow! I was on some major "twilight" drugs with allowed me to be awake but not really present. The surgery involved pushing the damaged left vocal cord toward the right, and to get the placement just right I was asked to speak during the procedure so they could test the quality of my voice. My voice works really well and for the first time in nearly a year I don't have to strain to talk, yippi
best,
Becca
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