The first month of my journey was marked by an open brain surgery to remove a tumor in my cerebellum. The past month has been quite eventful with radiation, pain and chemotherapy.

After the surgery of tumor removal, a follow-up radiation treatment using Gamma Knife was needed to kill any microscopic cancer cell residual around the tumor. For five consecutive mornings, we drove up to UCSF to make the 8am appointments. The side-effects from this radiation treatment was not bad. But the most challenging part was to lie down and stay still in the Gamma Knife machine for almost an hour each time. Any movement of the head beyond 1.5mm would stop the procedure. The head mask was very tight and my lower back pain made things much worse. At least it was done and we celebrated at a Mediterranean restaurant.

As my back and lower neck pain was getting worse, my radiation oncologist recommended another round of radiation specific to my spine affected by metastasis. After another 5 days of radiation treatment, my pain level had gone up significantly which impacted my daily living and my sleep. It might be a temporary flare-up from the radiation but the pain was getting out of control. By the grace of God, I got a relief from the pain over the Mother’s Day weekend and I have been feeling good since then. It could be the new long-acting pain medicine or the benefits from the spine radiation. Either way, the relief is ultimately from God and I am very grateful for that.

While the radiation was going on, the UCSF500 genetic testing came back with no driver mutation that had suitable targeted therapy. We met the oncologists at UCSF and Stanford. Both of them agreed that my best treatment option was to enroll in a clinical trial conducted at Stanford. God spared me the dilemma in which the two oncologists disagreed with each other. I would have struggled to make a decision without second-guessing myself.

My clinical trial started yesterday (5/16) with infusion of a combination of 4 drugs. Sitting in the infusion area for more than 5 hours, this might be the first time I met so many cancer patients in close proximity. There were the grandpa’s and grandma’s whom one might expect. But there was a woman probably in her 30’s and a few other middle-aged patients. Each one has a unique life story that brings the journey to this point. They look like any other people where I might run into at Stanford Shopping Center or Valley Fair Mall. However as we cross paths in that infusion center, we share one special thing in common. We are members of this new club which sends out unsolicited invitations which cannot be declined.