Sunday, June 28, 2009

Cancer Training

This weekend, Carol and I attended a conference sponsored by the International Myeloma Foundation here in Dallas. It was very informative as we learned about current treatment methodologies and upcoming drugs, ways of handling side effects of the chemotherapy, and other good stuff.

Leading doctors in this disease nationwide were there, and it was good to listen to them, and chat with them between sessions, as well. Some of these men have been cancer doctors longer than I have been an engineer (that’s a long time), and their names are on testing procedures for evaluation of this disease. There also were very helpful sessions by a cancer nurse, and a myeloma patient.

The top question on every patient’s mind is what are current survival predictions for patients in their situation. One patient there had been in treatment for 19 years, and there was a report of another patient who has been in treatment for 31 years. These are the outlier data points, but praise God for outlier data points. Then I met a man who looks healthier than me, and has been in treatment for only 3 years, but his cancer is not responding to the drugs, and the prognosis is not good. It is all over the field.

All in all, it was a good conference, and I am glad we went.

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