My personal cancer story is both astounding and mundane. I was diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer (Gleason 5+5) in October of 2011 at age 54. Post-surgery pathology revealed that the cancer had escaped the prostate and moved into surrounding tissue. After a subsequent 38 radiation treatments in the summer of 2012, the cancer went quiet only to reemerge in late 2015, metastasized to a rib. Since that time, I have had three more metastatic recurrences, one to my scapula and spine, and two more separate instances to multiple vertebrae.
The astounding part of my story is that I am still here, enjoying an active life with family and friends. When my cancer was discovered back in 2011, someone with my diagnosis had a 5% chance of living 10 years. I am alive today thanks to the dedication and hard work of some of the finest cancer researchers and oncologists in the world who rely on federal grants to support their research.
The mundane part of my cancer journey is that these advances in treatment have been steady and incremental. Medicine and medical technology are iterative sciences. Yes, there are occasional dramatic breakthroughs, but most advances build on previous work. Keeping the funding pipeline full is essential to producing the kinds of results that have helped millions of people around the globe live longer with cancer, or become completely cancer-free. (This is why I often say, "I like science.")
Today, we are witnessing the destruction of decades of critical, life-saving medical research. The United States has been at the forefront of advances in cancer treatment for decades. Our nation has been a magnet for brilliant medical and scientific researchers from all over the world. The foundation of our national success has been our government's commitment to fund this important work. As we are now seeing, without that commitment, research and clinical trials come to a screeching halt, leaving patients and their families facing desperate and uncertain futures.
I have recently highlighted two of these heartbreaking stories. In an Instagram story posted last week, Jayne, a young mother of two, explains that her breast cancer clinical trial that had been showing great promise was abruptly canceled due to a funding cut. Jayne notes that many of the patients in her clinical trial are Stage 4, the most advanced stage of the disease. Jane and her trial cohort have been left in the lurch, frightened, confused and wondering why this is happening.
Kyle Lewis, a Navy veteran with Stage 4 melanoma that has spread to his liver, spleen and lungs, was told he had only weeks to live in 2020. But thanks to an experimental treatment, his cancer has been held at bay. No more. According to the story he shares with reporter Patty Nieberg at Task & Purpose, an online magazine devoted to military veterans, the funding for his experimental treatment was halted.
“As of right now, I cannot receive the same drugs that I received before, the ones that saved my life,” Kyle Lewis, who served in the Navy from 1999 to 2003, told Task & Purpose. “A lot of the tumors, lesions on my organs are all still there and this drug has sort of been keeping them at bay. The data that exists now says there’s an 80% chance that my cancer will come back within the next year or so.”
But Kyle is not just concerned with himself.
“I have been through some shit in this life of mine, and Stage 4 cancer was not even the hardest,” Lewis said. “I go into my appointments and the most gut-wrenching thing for me is to see kids with cancer or kids with life-threatening diseases. That is what’s not fair. That is horrible and to know that these kids’ treatment is at risk now because of the slashes to medical research, that is crushing to me. I can’t fathom how anyone would be OK with that.”
Indeed, Kyle. How could anyone be okay with that? Yet, here we are.
The DOGE insanity is reaching into every part of our lives. I am going to continue to publish stories about these reprehensible and cold-hearted cuts to cancer research. Cancer knows no political ideology or belief system. It is an equal opportunity disease that touches us all at some point, either ourselves, a family member or a friend.
Please share this story with family members, colleagues and friends. Feel free to send it to your elected representatives. Let them know that this lunacy will not stand. Our lives depend on it.
