In the Chemo Room: A guinea pig

Never did I imagine I would be walking through the Phil Anschutz-funded doors of the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora volunteering to be a guinea pig for cancer research.

But that's what I did on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday when I went for my first screening and scan appointments to enter a clinical trial for a drug called MEHD7945A, sponsored by Genentech Inc. out of San Francisco, which I suppose wants to manufacture and sell the drug once it is cleared by the FDA.

The consent forms are pretty clear: "You are being asked to take part in this research study of an investigational drug called MEHD7945A. The study drug is being looked at to see if it could be a treatment for advanced cancer. "Investigational" means that the study drug has not been approved by the U.S. Food and  Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA is the U.S. government agency that reviews the results of research and decides if a drug can be sold in the U.S.

"You are being asked to be in this study because your tumor has grown or spread during or following chemotherapy or other treatment, or there is no standard therapy for your type of cancer.... The purpose of this research study is to determine the safety of the study drug and to determine the highest tolerated dose ... that can be given to subjects safely.... This is a Phase 1 study. This is the first time that MEHD7945A will be given to humans and is in a very early stage of development.... Please carefully read the sections on risk and benefits below."

The forms went on to describe known side effects, which so far have been mild in most subjects, but the forms don't rule out death or some lesser cataclysmic personal reaction to the drug and they schedule your first infusion (mine is on Wednesday) as a 10-hour day to make sure you don't have one.

The scans taken this week are done to establish a baseline for growth or reduction of the colorectal cancer growing in my lungs. The best results the researches will tell you about, however, is a possible stabilization of the growth and spread of the tumors. That's one reason entering the trial is considered one way a cancer patient who has gone through "standard" treatment and not defeated the disease can prolong his or her life beyond the time it would take for it to kill you if left unabated.

Dr. Wells Messersmith, the "study doctor" in charge of my treatment, told me July 8 that I don't look like someone who has cancer -- I've been gaining weight lately -- and my hope is that I keep up those appearances (and energy) while this new drug stabilizes my disease.

But none of all that is what amazed me most as I walked through the doors of the Anschutz cancer pavilion this week. What amazed me was the beehive of economic activity represented by the center during what has been the third of probably the three toughest economic years in the state's history.

Patients and employees alike hurried in and out of the pavilion; cars fueled by $3 gas, big buses and small carts ferried people in and out of jammed parking lots; hospital shops and cafeteria, information desks and check-in outposts were hustling with an assured, customer-service oriented dispatch.

I never thought I would have to be grateful to Phil Anschutz, but the marvel that has been created by The Anschutz Foundation -- which has contributed more than $100 million to building the center -- the University of Colorado, the city of Aurora, the state of Colorado and the federal government calls forth a deep sense of relief over having available to me the very best opportunities to beat my disease.

I don't mind feeling like a guinea pig.

Maybe my participation in this clinical trial, like all the work being done at the medical campus, will save a few lives down the road. 

Republicans, Weiners and my friends

Obama signs health-care bill

A friend -- you may remember Eric Marburger from when I wrote about him last October -- asked yesterday, during a croquet game whether I was planning to watch the Republican presidential campaign debate last night.

I wasn't, and this morning reading about the debate I realized why. It doesn't matter. Look at the potential nominees and it becomes clear not one of them will have a ghost's chance in hell of beating President Barack Obama.                                                    Photo credit: www.sodahead.com

Unless, perhaps, the nominee is U.S. Rep Michele Bachmann, who announced her official candidacy at the debate.

If Republicans nominate her, the country might entertain the idea of electing the first woman president, but then a majority of voters would also reconsider her Tea Party affiliations and vote for the incumbent as the lesser of two evils.

It seems every presidential election comes down to that kind of decision in modern America.

Besides that, by November of 2012, Obama will have proven himself a president who acts in the best interests of all Americans, not leaving out even those who oppose him.

One element of the debate last night proves my contention. I'm depending on New York Times coverage published in the Denver Post when I quote former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney who said during the debate: "What you're doing will not work. It's a huge power grab by the federal government."

That's nonsense and Romney knows it. He was talking about Obama's health-care legislation and even conservative-minded Tea Partyers will realize the benefits universal health-care coverage will provide them by the time the election rolls around. By then, too, all Republican opposition to the plan will be seen for the lie that it is.

Affordable health care for all the people of the United States will be just as laudable a goal in November of 2012 as it was during November of 2008 and all through 2009 and 2010 when the Congress debated the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and Obama signed it.

Calling it "Obamneycare" will just remind people that the president, like Mitt Romney when he signed similar legislation in Massachusetts, was thinking of all the people in America, not just the rich and not just the poor, but all the people who make up the great middle class.

We need universal health care in America; the president's plan protected the private insurance industry and offered health-insurance availability to 30 million uninsured Americans. It was a compromise position, but he got it enacted into law, and a grateful electorate will reward him with a second four-year term.

Even the idea of a woman president won't overcome that perception when we go the polls in 2012.

Now, about Weiner. New York Rep. Anthony Weiner made all kinds of headlines except one over the past few weeks. Another friend, I won't say who, suggested I write this headline for a blog post I might write about Weiner: "It really was Weiner's wiener!"

I hope my other readers appreciate my discretion in containing the headline to a single paragraph here.

In the Chemo Room: 17 minutes to appeal $176,365 bill

I go back to the chemo room later today, but this morning I sat in on a medical panel that heard my appeal of Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield's denial of $176,365 of radiation "benefits" I received last summer.

To make that clear: Anthem has initially refused to pay my doctors and my hospital $176,000 for treatments I received through May and June 2010 based on the company's medical protocols that don't consider the type of radiation therapy I received a standard treatment for metastasized colorectal cancer. 

Both my doctors, Thomas Kenney, oncologist, and Seth Reiner, radiation, were on the 17-minute teleconferenced call as the appeal hearing was conducted, and both explained why they prescribed the treatments I was given. The panel seemed to agree, but a majority vote is to decide the issue and I am to be informed in 24 hours how the vote went down.

It was all very professional, and my doctors both said they have participated in such review/appeals in the past. It is part of the "system" of health care we've got going for us here in America, and the new "affordable" health care act passed by Democrats last year probably won't change this part of the system.

The law preserved the role of private-sector health-insurance companies in the health-care industry, so health insurers, in order to preserve profit margins, will challenge doctors on protocols in order to keep from paying as much as possible on insurance policies that are racking up huge costs for care. If the company is successful, the bills fall to the patient, no matter their ability to pay, and the insurance company dodges, in my case, this one $176,000 bullet.

Anthem Blue Cross has already paid much more for my care during my near four-year battle against the disease, so I don't blame them for this attempt to save themselves some money. It's good business.

And its good business on my part and my doctors' parts to appeal initial decisions and make the insurance company pay. That's all part of the initial transaction I made with the insurer, and why I keep paying my ever-increasing premiums. The appeal process adds costs to the "system," but that's a policy the wise heads of industry and government have adopted. 

Of course, a public option to private health insurance might suggest a cure to this national chronic economic illness. But that's another story.

In the Chemo Room: I'm back ... !

Yes, I'm back in the Chemo Room, just as my oncologist suspected I would be, and I had hoped I would not.

But the only way to keep cancer from killing you is to keep fighting it.

So I am back in the Chemo Room fighting my cancer with the same two chemicals that got a "profound"  response from my body during my last round of chemo: Erbitux, that expensive cell-starving biologic, and Ironotecan, a cell-killing juice you really don't want to try.

My latest treatment was last week on Thursday, and I spent most of Friday and part of Saturday and Sunday trying to get over the hump of it. Sunday's Broncos' thumping of Kansas City helped.

I feel better now, so I'm back at my computer to tell you again about where I've been in my fight against this disease.

Before the latest treatment, I was telling people I felt I had come back to nearly 100 percent of my work energy before ever being diagnosed. That was the result of a seven-month break from the chemicals: my hair grew back; the neuropathy in my hands, feet and legs continued to dissipate, making me feel like my nerves were growing back; I was writing and posting these blogs (about other subjects) more frequently, writing on http://www.examiner.com/ about Colorado poetry more often, finishing my book about Denver oil man Timothy Marquez, and even writing about other literary topics on my poetry website, http://www.robertschwabpoet.com/.

I also underwent six weeks of radiation therapy trying to kill the one cancer-cell production center -- a lymph gland in my chest -- spotted in the March 17, 2010 pet scan I received following the end of the first Erbitux round of chemo.

The side effects of that treatment were minimal except for the fact that Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield initially denied paying for the treatment and sent me a statement indicating a debt of more than $70,000. I believe that claim is now being worked out. When you don't make much money, you have to treat such claims casually and just seek to have them resolved between your doctors, the hospital and your insurer.

Five-year survival rates for colo-rectal cancer starting with a tumor in the rectum are about 59 percent, according to a 2006 post on About.com.

My doctor, Thomas Kenney, believes my cancer had already metastasized to my lung before the September 2007 surgery to remove my tumor, so my odds of living with the disease for five years probably have been considerably lower, but my luck on the Erbitux and Irinotecan gives me a chance to boost my odds of survival even past the five-year mark.

I was taking flax-seed oil during the whole last round, and I believe (with no proof) it might have helped me, too, since long-ago research that was ignored by the medical community claimed flax oil acted as an anti-cancer agent. The latest anti-cancer agent to acquire blooming Internet demand is something called Lypo-Spheric Vicamin C, but you won't find many doctors swearing by it (again no proof).

My docs don't like me taking extra Vitamin C because they claim it interferes with the chemo. Kenney has told me to investigate my own alternative treatments to the cancer, and during the seven months I have been off his chemicals I have found that diet is probably the most logical alternative or supplemental treatment besides flax that I might undetake.

That's a difficult choice. You pretty much have to stop eating red meat, and if you don't eat vegetables raw, you should cook them from a raw state to have the most impact. The idea is the foods naturally boost your immune system, and your immune system is the best cancer-fighting agent there is. Chemo essentially destroys your immune system.

But with a new Whole Foods store and a Vitamin Cottage nearby, I might just give the food route a try. Many of you who know me well, know that I have never lost my appetite during this fight. Not for the fight, nor for a good dinner, cocktail and dessert on most evenings.    

SchwabBlog: Watch out for a bailout

The Colorado General Assembly, according to the Denver Post, faces a boat load of decisions on issues ranging from public-school teacher tenure to college funding, from medical marijuana to river rafting, during the last week of their legislature.

Watch out for a bailout.

Legislators in the last few years have prided themselves on early wrapups, conducting their business with money-saving dispatch. This year, however, too many unresolved issues will probably push the gang of politicians to the more traditional push back of the clock at midnight May 12, in order to give themselves time on that Wednesday night to do the last of their dirty deeds.

Unless they decide a bailout is the better part of political valor.

Not acting to resolve conflicts is a favorite device of politicians not willing to face the political backlash that results from taking action.

Why do you think it took almost 100 years and seven presidents to gain nearly universal health insurance coverage for Americans? Congress during all that time was afraid to act and face the repercussions of their votes. So thousands of Americans died for lack of care.

Expect the Colorado legislature to make the same choice on at least a few of the issues lawmakers still face. I'd bet river access will be the most likely.

Cry me a river; who wants sacred landowners howling for your skin because you voted to give all Coloradans access to their rivers.

Delay is not what we pay these guys and gals for, so anyone who has any influence over the mob should press them to take all issues to a vote. The time for right policy is always now, not later. At least that's how Schwab reads the news.

Speed kills, change comes in good time

The local news today announces how change -- bipartisan and united for the common good -- is supposed to work in these United States.

"Ritter backs change in teacher appraisal," the Denver Post's banner headline reads. The story under it tells how the lame-duck governor has signed on to a bill in the legislature that would change the way Colorado teachers are being evaluated for tenure.

The bill is opposed by teachers' unions, of course. Change frightens everyone, especially on a political stage (witness the year-long fight for health-care reform in this country, the continued bank opposition to financial reform, Taliban assassinations of officials in Kandahar, Afghanistan).

But progress happens, and fear will not stop it.

Such is the secret of Obama rule in America today. The president doesn't back down from getting the most substantial health-care reform in the nation's history just because some people oppose it. That's leadership.

Obama pushes for and gets game-changing reform because the people of the nation want their lives and the lives of their children to change for the better. They are willing to suffer temporary pain if it means making progress on dozens of challenges that face the nation.

Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter chose not to run again for the very reason that he stepped into the public-school education debate going on right now in the legislature.

Without the political burden of having to appease teachers' unions, he can add his weight to the momentum of education reform which is favored by a majority of the people he governs.

Teachers need to be held accountable for their students' academic performance. If the students fail, their teachers have obviously failed; a teacher's livelihood ought to be affected by his or her success or failure in the classroom.

Obama has won on health care and he will win on financial reform because the time has come to make changes that improve the life of the republic. It takes time, political capital, real money, and a lot of hard work to affect real change in this country.

Speed kills, even in an Internet age. Life, politics, change and evolution go much slower. We must all remember to give each other the grace to change in our own time. The beauty in it all is that we have time to make the world a better place.

In the chemo room, Chapter IV

A quick update, with more to come soon.

The PET scan I talked about in my last post (look down this series of posts to find March 10) revealed a "profound" response from my body to the Irinotecan and Erbitux mix of my last round of chemo.

The quote is my doctor's. Thomas Kenney, my oncologist, presented my case to the tumor committee of Porter Hospital today because he wanted the medical staff to take a look at what he saw and did not see in the scan.

What he did see was a single, still-active, cancer-producing lymph node in my chest that is considered a primary site for lymph-node production of metastasized colo-rectal cancer cells; what he did not see was any more production centers. Neither did he see any obvious reproduction of cells in my lungs, but he was going to double check that before presenting my case to the tumor committee. I presume he didn't see much when he took that second look.

That's all great news, of course, even if the single lymph node indicates I haven't yet stopped abnormal growth of cancer in the Schwab body.

But it did change Kenney's thinking about what to do next. There are some clinical trials of new cancer radiation treatments being done at the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, and since my cancer only was showing up in my chest, he thought I might be a good subject for localized radiation to kill all the cells in that area.

If there is no microscopic cancer-cell production still going on in parts of my lungs, the radiation of the chest nodes might indeed cure me. But if the lungs are still growing little tumors, like bulbs in a spring garden, the cancer eventually will grow large enough to be picked up by the scan again, perhaps in three to six months.

Kenney has to consider all those ramifications in deciding what treatment to recommend to me. After all his ruminations though, we'll talk about the next, best treatment options, and I'll decide what I want to do.

Of course, if I can afford it, I'll do whatever I can to kill off the stuff growing inside me. I figure it is going to take me another seven years to finish the novel I've started, and to make a success of the business I am just starting. No one can guess the percentages playing for or against me, but if this "profound" Schwab body is making a bet, I'd lay odds its going to get it all done.

I'll update you soon on my next treatment decision.

Welcome a filibuster, change or be gone

Here's a thought: Seat the new senator from Massachusetts, finish crafting a decent health-care reform bill that merges House and Senate concerns, and let the Republicans filibuster all they want in the Senate. The vacuousness of their arguments against the bill will show them up as anti-middle-class blowhards.

And the American people, young and old, will welcome action, any action, from Congress, just to shut it up and be able to move on.

The 60-vote super majority in the Senate is just that. A health-care bill can be passed with fewer votes but still a majority, and the stupidity of a Republican stand against all the good parts of the bill might even convince some of them they want to be on the right side of history when the bill is signed into law.

My friend, Bob O'Neil, a successful retired business man out of Chicago, believes the election in Massachusetts was a message to all incumbents in Washington, including Obama, that something must get done or all their futures are in jeopardy.

I remember telling my friend Herman Malone after Obama's election that he had better "change" things or the whole country would explode. Young people in America, who strongly supported him, as well as middle-class whites, are mostly frustrated with the Washington bureaucracy's inabilty to fathom their 2008 election message. "Change" or be gone.

The same message will be sent this year come November if there is no evidence the people were not understood the first time.

Watch Democrats 'just do it'

Over the weekend, Democrats gathered around a bunch of spades to dig the first shovels-full of dirt marking the rise of a new $300 million Veterans hospital in Aurora.

It took ten years to get there, eight of them during the Republican George W. Bush administration, but only eight months since the election of Barack Obama.

According to the Denver Post, actual construction on the project won't start until June, which may be a better time to celebrate the decision of the federal government to build the hospital, given the history of the project.

Before I left ColoradoBiz (in 2007), I had a writer do a profile of then Veteran's Administration head Jim Nicholson who was one of the several VA secretaries to go round and round on the project, but Nicholson did his job for local vets by getting it back on track.

Unfortunately, Nicholson's successor put it off track again, and Saturday's groundbreaking was the closest point yet veterans from the region have come to being assured the new hospital will be there for them if they live long enough to be served in it.

The federal commitment is an example of how Democrats just do it, rather than yak, yak, yak about it, like Republicans want to do on health-care reform, in order to keep the federal government from spending money.

Building a state-of-the-art hospital for vets from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, as well as vets from the first Iraq war, the Korean War, Vietnam, and many of the conflicts in between, helps fulfill one of Obama's campaign promises: To get Iraq and Afghanistan wounded proper and on-going treatment. But you won't hear many bipartisans making that point.

Still, it is what Democrats do, besides tax and spend, as they are constantly accused of doing. They tax, yes. But they also spend tax money on government service to its people. Even when they have to borrow billions of dollars to do it.

Democrats believe the people they serve are worth government support. It's time Republican elected officials begin to do the same.