Best. Week. Ever.

Hopefully you're familiar enough with Comic Book Guy from "The Simpsons" to be able to say the title in his voice.

This has been a great week. No nausea, more energy than usual and a November that feels like September. I actually did some yard work today! (Much to Wendy's delight....) I can't hold a glass of water steady right now due to shaky muscles, but the lawns are mowed and the hedges are trimmed!

I received a call from Carolyn at OHSU a couple of days ago with the results of my Gleevec level test. I'm on the low side of the "normal range". She said they like to see the level at 1000 (not sure about the units) and mine was at 590. Below 500 is apparently bad ("non-theuraputic" I think she said). This means my dosage cannot be lowered to reduce side effects. Luckily, this week they are lower than I think they've ever been.

And now from the "random-moments-of-the-universe" department:

I still have trouble sleeping at nights and end up watching a fair amount of T.V. Last night I'm watching a Law & Order episode from 2002 called "Undercovered". Detectives Briscoe and Green are investigating the murder of an insurance adjuster. They eventually arrest a cable installer who's van was present at the crime scene and who was in possession of a hammer that was determined to be the murder weapon. As A.D.A.'s McCoy and Southerlyn try to determine a motive they discover that the man's daughter had a disease.

Guess what disease.

No really. Guess. I'll wait....

It's CML! The father murdered the insurance adjuster because they had denied treatment with a new, but expensive wonder drug and approved a bone marrow transplant instead. Since the family was Hispanic, the odds of the little girl finding a matching donor were near zero. So the father bashes the adjusters head in with a hammer. Two guesses what the wonder drug was....

Gleevec!

(Did you get it in one guess?)

How's that for random coincidence? It's three o'clock in the morning and I'm on the couch freaking out, waking up Wendy because I just can't believe what I'm watching.

It made me think though:

1. Did Druker come to work the next morning back in 2002 and get heckled in the hallways?
2. Did insurance companies really deny treatment with Gleevec in the beginning due to the exorbitant cost?
3. Did someone with CML awaiting a transplant discover Gleevec through this episode in 2002 and change the course of their treatment?
4. Will Wendy forgive me for waking her at 3am to share something that could have easily waited till 10am? (Yes, for those of you keeping score, she did.)

This the first time I can remember personally "part of" something that's been dramatized on T.V. And it had to be cancer. What the fuck? Why not "Girls Gone Wild"? Or a documentary on the lives of lottery winners?

Ah well, one can hope.... :-)