Lucky Me

This morning I found myself in the waiting room of the radiation treatment center exchanging comments with a new friend about how lucky we were. Now this new friend has brain tumors that have reoccurred after 5 years of being cancer free and I am in chemo for a rare cancer and radiation for another. Just how lucky could we be?
We shared how we both had been healthy for most of our lives. She had not had cancer until after retiring from teaching. Although we may not benefit from the nanotechnology and gene manipulation of the future (perhaps shutting off the cancer genes) we had waited until a time when many survive cancers. Our husbands were both rolling their eyes like we were nuts, but at that moment in time we both were aglow with optimism.

This evening I had dinner with friends. I was a little sorry for myself while I told them the chemo was hard. I felt the one drug I am on was as hard as the previous four. Both friends had participated in research that made my current treatment possible. (To protect privacy, I don't want to use friend's names in my blog.) Their dogs were diagnosed with osteosarcoma and participated in treatment research of chemotherapy treatments. Like most canines the osteosarcoma was not diagnosed until it was advanced.

Osteosarcoma is the most common bone tumor in dogs. It typically afflicts middle-age large and giant breed dogs such as Irish Wolfhounds, Greyhounds, German Shepherds, Rottweilers, and Great Danes. Interestingly spayed/neutered dogs have twice the risk of intact ones to develop osteosarcoma.

I owe a debt of gratitude to those caring people and their brave dogs that participated in osteosarcoma research and made me the lucky person I am today.