Posts by Nancy Rodriguez26

Elizabeth Gonzalez55 said:There was this one woman, I think her name was Vesna Vulovic, who actually survived a plane crash from 33,000 feet. Pretty sure she’s the first person you’d think of if you were stuck on a plane that started falling apart.

Look, just for the sake of anyone actually reading this, I’m not out here pushing my own opinions regarding chemo as an option for treating melanoma. I’m just passing along information I got straight from the horse's mouth: Dr. Djokovic (Mayo Clinic), Dr. Stanec (Cleveland Clinic), Dr. Juretic (Johns Hopkins), Prof. Dr. Schadendorf (German Cancer Research Center), and Prof. Dr. Morton (JWCI santa Monica, USA). They told me this face-to-face; there’s zero room for "misinterpreting" what they said.

Chemo is usually reserved for the terminal stage, used as a palliative measure where the response rate is maybe 10-20%. And even then, "response" basically just means you buy some time—maybe up to six months. We aren't talking about a cure here. I'm talking about classic chemotherapy using DTICem. Maybe the case you're thinking of is different, and they're giving that guy something else entirely, but I don't know enough to weigh in on that. And let's get one thing straight—I never said chemo doesn't help anyone. Sure, maybe there are outliers. Personally? I don't know a single person it worked for, though I do know about twenty people who aren't with us anymore.

I would be super grateful if you could show me this guy's medical records—but hey, no rush, maybe in three years. While you're at it, feel free to include a little summary of his quality of life while he was on that treatment. Because in the last three years, my husband has gotten married, had two kids (the second one should arrive, Bog willing, in about two weeks), graduated from Georgia Tech, and changed jobs twice. Every Saturday he’s out hiking, staying active, traveling... you name it. And there isn't really a "before" or "after" with alternative therapy; it’s just something we’ve done continuously since the diagnosis and will keep doing for the rest of his life.

I have never called him cured, and I never will. The cancer is in him, just waiting for its moment. It would be incredibly arrogant of me to talk about a "cure." That's why I always say he's doing well right now. I thank Bog every morning. I don't make long-term plans. Everything could go south tomorrow, and I'm painfully aware of that. But I hope, and I believe.

So yeah, that's that. I'm done arguing about this.