First Second Opinion

We journeyed to The University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center Duchossois Center for Advanced Medicine and Thinktank for Extra Long Hospital Names yesterday. Cattle call. But the facilities were top notch and the doctors knew their stuff. We first met with a Fellow who works with the head doc. She was great: appropriately empathetic, asked the right questions, obviously read Liz's file. Then we saw the big cheese.

The good news: we're on the right treatment plan and Liz is responding well. In fact, the doc wouldn't do anything differently. She couldn't even feel any obvious signs of the tumor (you know, the one that used to be 7cm). Awesome.

The bad news: it's still advanced metastatic breast cancer.

I thought I'd be relieved after this appointment, especially since we're doing the right things. But I was actually disappointed. As crazy as it sounds, I must have believed that the doc would find something else, would have some miracle idea or therapy or medication or study that would guarantee a lifelong cure. So it was valuable to get confirmation that our local oncologist is perfectly aligned with super doc. But part of me wishes that they disagreed.

The medical campus is just South of downtown Chicago. After a 3-hour appointment, we endured enjoyed yelled at drove in rush hour traffic to arrive for a late, spontaneous dinner at Outback Steakhouse. Crikey. Liz has eaten little over the past 2 weeks, and she finally had a craving for some real food. Her body was probably screaming for iron as well—the Taxotere is merciless on her nails. She got steak. And smiled. We talked a lot last night, which we rarely have time to do enough of. And we laughed. Not exactly the date we would have dreamed up, but it was really nice.

The doc used the magic word—"years"—to describe Liz's prognosis. So our world won't come crashing down in the short-term. It's the long-term outlook that's the problem. This cancer won't be cured, but we want to manage it for many, many, many years to come. I vote for at least 50 more. High quality of life, plenty of time to teach and raise our boys, more time for Liz to teach me too.

It's not all doom and gloom. She's fighting this! The treatments are working. Round 6 will be administered on July 1st, and we hope that's the last treatment she'll have to have for a long time. Your thoughts, prayers, and service give Liz strength and give us hope. We want to kick cancer on its ugly backside so it never comes back. But if it does, we pray that the most advanced treatments to keep cancer at bay will continue to be developed and approved.

We will not live with fear. But don't blame us if we let it visit every once in a while.

Go Team Liz.