Hey,
Sorry to hear about your diagnosis. When I got the results of my biopsy before a long weekend, I went on the internet to read up on pleural mesothelioma, and the statistics are grim. But I have never thought of myself as a statistic. Plus, all you read is based on data that's a year old or older, and based on patients that are usually quite a bit older than us, since meso takes such a long time to break through. So your chances might be quite a bit better than what you read! Don't lose hope!
I was diagnosed in Feb 2013. Surgery (one lump that was wrapped around an artery had to be left behind) and chemo with Cisplatin followed, and it was a bitch. I hope your chemo works better than mine did. I was switched over to another, more tolerable drug, but what did my cancer in (so far, at least) appears to have been my own immune system. One of the chemos affected my kidneys and triggered a rare autoimmune disorder that ate my own blood cells, but apparently also my cancer. While that is apparently unheard of, there are clinical trials out there that work with your immune system to fight your cancer. See if you can join one of those, if your chemo doesn't work out. Not sure how your medical care situation is where you are. You might have to travel for a trial. I know they have them in UCSF, among other places.
I have a friend who's been diagnosed 13 years ago with abdominal mesothelioma, I'm approaching my 5 year mark since diagnosis, and 4 years without detectable cancer. If we can do it, so can you - just don't give up!
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December 2017
Hey,
