Cancer & Me
Most people know Bernadine Healy, U.S. News health editor, as the former head of the National Institutes of Health and the American Red Cross. They might not recall that she was diagnosed with a brain tumor eight years ago. In a new book, Healy uses her unique perspective and personal struggle with the disease to explore the state of cancer research, care, and treatment today—and tomorrow.
My first blast of chemo toxicity hit hard during the second week of therapy when I started the procarbazine pills for a two-week daily stint. Also on that day I had my first dose of vincristine. Unlike the other drugs that I could take in the comfort of home, vincristine required an in-person appearance at the cancer center.Whatever their value would be, these drugs didn't seem too bad—until later that night. A little after midnight, nausea, dry heaves, and vomiting hit suddenly, and they recurred like clockwork every 45 minutes, untouched by the standard antinausea medicine I'd been taking. Exhausted, I would fall asleep as each wave passed, but unfairly so, as my husband, who had a job to go to in the morning, was awake all night. This happened for several nights in a row as my body reacted, relentlessly and rhythmically trying to reject the toxic stuff seeping into it.
I vowed to take the heavier antinausea medicine. After that, queasy was the worst of it—and I have never been so grateful for queasy. How awful chemo must have been before the discovery of these more powerful medicines. The newer but more expensive drugs gave me, as they give many, a semblance of normalcy during a long stretch of toxic treatment.
There was something even more powerful that helped me get through this medical annus horribilis. The gene analysis showed my tumor matched the profile of those in the Toronto study that responded to chemotherapy. I wondered how it would have been had I gotten the opposite news. I would still want to know, I decided, but why, when it would only be a downer? I guess because I was already steeled for getting less favorable news, which I think is common when people first confront a cancer diagnosis. Perhaps a less positive gene reading would have influenced how I spent my time or increased my resolve to move sooner to more aggressive, experimental chemo with a bone marrow transplant. Maybe I would have opted for a lighter work schedule. But then again, maybe not—kicking back wasn't appealing under any circumstances, least of all the current ones. My family had to carry on with their lives, and I drew strength from knowing that I had to do the same.
I had my MRI scan after the first cycle of chemotherapy. It seemed as if a world of time had filled the eight weeks since my diagnosis. I was back at work, and life at home had settled into its old routines. I had successfully weathered one bout of bone marrow toxicity that troubled my bone marrow expert more than it did me. Relieved and hopeful, I felt that I could do this treatment and still carry on with my life as if I were entirely well.
But scan time brought me back to cancer's reality. My doctors warned me not to expect too much improvement after just one month of treatment, but this scan was still a kind of reckoning. There I lay, head rigid, arms fixed, eyes staring upward with nothing to see, encased in a sleek white sarcophagus.
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