My lung cancer journey took an unexpected turn last week. I had a battery of tests on Wednesday 8/20 including CT scans of my head, chest, and abdomen to see if I qualified to be in the clinical trial I was applying for. On Friday the results came back and showed my lung cancer had metastasized to a tumor in the right frontal lobe of my brain. I've lost much of the function in my left arm and hand, as the left side of the body is controlled by the right brain. I'm typing this with my left hand only, hunt and peck style, which is slow and frustrating. Hence, this won't be a very long note. My left leg is a little affected so I have a slight limp, but it's no problem. I didn't finish all the clinical trial tests so I don't think I'll be in the trial; one fewer decision to make.
This was a complete surprise, a scan on 7/6 showed no tumors in my brain, and now 6 weeks later, it is the size of a big marble. The good news is that it is close to the top of my brain and there is only one tumor in my brain. Also, it has only impacted part of my non-dominant hand. it could have been in my speech center or cognitive control or visual cortex or memory or emotion centers. Losing some function in my non-dominant arm was definitely the best of some bad options!
The brain tumor board meets this morning (8/25) to decide on a treatment plan. I suspect they will recommend brain surgery followed by 2 years of immunotherapy and maybe some radiation. I'm hoping to have the brain tumor removed tomorrow, and then recover for a few days or a week, and then get back to work while having Keytruda infusions every 3-6 weeks, as was my original plan. I'm thinking of this as a speed bump at the start of my treatment journey.
I'm lucky to have a lot of support. My kids living in Brookline, Caitlin and Ryan, visit every day. My wife just flew back from Tokyo. We've been FaceTiming every day during her Tokyo Jazz tour where she had two performances and went to Jazz shows over the past 3 weeks (sometimes sitting in) with amazing musicians every night! My step-daughter is flying in from New Orleans tomorrow before her New England tour with her band, Tuba Skinny. My siblings are all on a group text chat with constant support and encouragement, and many friends have offered to visit. I greatly appreciate all the kind thoughts in the comments to my Facebook posts -- about a quarter of my 1000 FB friends have commented with words of encouragement. I have an embarrassment of riches in my social network!
The doctors, hospitalists, nurses, and other staff are all very personable and highly skilled, really the best in the world. I'm still quite optimistic about eliminating all of the cancer from my body in the next 2 years or less.
While waiting for tests and appointments over the past three months, I've self-published three books on
Lulu.comTwo are biographies that I edited (of my dad and my maternal grandfather) and one is a collection of essays on Spirituality and Secular Buddhism. I have three more in preparation --my memoir, a biography of my mom, and a slightly irreverent pamphlet on how to use secular buddhist practices to have a more effective and loving, less stressful life.
I've also spent the past few months, after teaching two summer school classes in June, preparing for my class this Fall, CS29a: Discrete Structures. I've prepared the syllabus and all of the lectures, readings, homeworks, and weekly exams. The Computer Science Department Chair is looking for someone that can co-teach the class with me, or take it over completely if needed. The class starts this Friday, but it would be a miracle for me to be able to teach this Friday. I don't think teaching via Zoom in my hospital gown would be a good idea!
I'll make another post later this week after I have recovered a bit from brain surgery. Wish me luck!
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