April 29, 2015 Update

Aaron has been fairly steady lately. His improvement was so dramatic the first few weeks on Tarceva and now it is not so drastic, but we still see signs of improvement.

We have been taking walks to try and rebuild his strength. We walk for at least 3 miles, which is pretty amazing considering that just last month he couldn’t climb a small flight of stairs without being winded. We tried walking up a pretty steep hill one morning, and decided to make our way back down when my legs started to burn and Aaron’s lungs caught “fire”.  He struggled with lightheadedness for most of the day after that jaunt, and so now we stick to pretty flat terrain.

I still drive him around everywhere because he hasn’t fully regained his strength, and dizziness is still a problem at times. He has driven himself on short errands that are 5 minutes from home, but not too frequently. He also still experiences some pain; mostly in his rib cage. He takes pain medication a couple of times a week, and he goes in tomorrow to receive a dose of Zometa. It’s a medication infused over a half an hour to an hour via an IV. Its purpose is to treat damage done by cancer that has spread to the bone, and we are hopeful it will help with the pain in his ribs.

We still get asked a lot about the treatment Aaron is on.  Up to this point, we had only associated cancer treatment with chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery. We didn’t understand that another option, called targeted gene therapy, existed for cancer.  Whereas chemo acts against all cells in the body, targeted therapies (like Aaron is on) specifically target the cancer cells. They block the growth and spread of cancer in a more precise and targeted way. In Aaron’s case his genetic cancer mutation is EGFR. So the Tarceva medication, which he takes, only affects EGFR related cells. It’s a whole new area and method of fighting cancer. To be clear we fully expect that chemo and radiation will be a part of Aaron’s treatment, but fortunately it is further down the road than if his cancer had not had this specific gene mutation (EGFR, Exon 19). His first line of defense is a targeted therapy rather than the more traditional treatments most of us are familiar with.

He’s also found a prescription cream that has significantly helped the swelling on his face from the rash. The rash has now spread to his scalp and has been more sensitive than the rash on his face. We picked up a prescription cream to use on the scalp, so hopefully it will help as well.

I can’t believe it has taken stage IV lung cancer to cause me to contemplate the fact that our lives have been, are now, and ever will be in the Lord’s hands. I’ve thought about how Aaron’s life hung in the balance recently and I ask myself when has it not been so? When is it not so for any of us? I’ve never thought so much about it before.

During our walks we stop at the many pioneer homes in the area and learn about the people who built them and what part they played in Farmington's history. We have driven by these homes countless times and only now are we taking the time to investigate. Each of these homes has a plaque stating it's history, and we look forward to what we will discover during our next walk, and hope we have many many more walks together in our future.