Had a lovely dinner tonight with Elizabeth VanNorden and Jenn Salm. Jenn is a young woman who has incurable cancer. She has been receiving chemo since 2008. Her father died of colon cancer when she was young, and her mother had breast cancer in 2003. Wow - I just can't imagine what it would be like to know that for the rest of your life you had to do chemo. Not surprisingly, she has a different view of chemo than I do, for it is what is keeping her alive. She has a rare cancer - can't even say the name, where she had tumors all over. She's on a new drug since Jan, and hasn't been rescanned since, so she has no idea how successful it is. She is a strong and beautiful woman, even with her bald head. She is the one who recommended Dr. Schlossberg who I will see on the 24th. She works at Albany Med in the organ donor dept. and regularly flies to other locations to pick up organs from other hospitals. She is amazing. We talked about trust and faith - and how to tell when you know something is "right" for you or not. Healthcare choices change dramatically with your perspective - and clearly she had a pretty deep perspective. I have certainly seen cancer from a lot of different perspectives.....but since my diagnosis, I have to say, I've learned a lot. A great big thank you to Jenn and Elizabeth for arranging the meeting.
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