Background: Hubby was raised LDS, and my in-laws are very active LDS (Mormons). The LDS church has a wonderful practice called a 'blessing'. A couple of weeks ago my in-laws came over and I got a blessing. The blessing process is a prayer, customized to the situation, the contents of which are inspired by God. In a religious tradition that believes in direct communication, the underlying idea is that the prayer is both a prayer and a message to the person needing the blessing.
My blessing said many of the normal things. It also included, twice, that I should follow my doctor's instructions exactly. This really stuck with me ---
.... and came back to me in my oncologist's office last week when he asked me about participating in a clinical trial. He's generally pretty conservative, but he said I was "perfect" for this trial and that he'd recommend my giving it a try.
I got goosebumps -- and decided then that I would do it. Hubby leaned over to me and said, 'are you thinking about what BIL said?'.
The thing is, the trial makes logical sense. It is a third-stage drug trial. The drug has been approved for metasticised breast cancer, now they want to see if it has impacts on non-metasticised breast cancers like mine.
It is a trial with a control group, so if I get the placebo, I'll be getting it along with the exact chemo I would get anyway.
The side effects don't seem to be distinguishable from chemo side effects and prior studies have shown that the drug by itself doesn't have side effects at all -- and it doesn't seem to increase the side effects of the standard chemo treatments.
It is also set-up so that I can quit at any point -- although I don't know why I would.
--- besides, when you have both God and science pointing the same direction, going another way just doesn't seem to be prudent.
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Sounds good to be part of the trial: one of your colleagues at BNCC was with her breast cancer, and all is *very* well with her now, five years later.
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