this is a great version of a great song…I never actually search for music so I am not sure what it is about Nina Simone, but her music keeps popping into my life just when I need it. Sort of a 'wake up and remember what's important' kind of appearances.
Have a great weekend!
"I got life, and I'm going to keep it as long as i want it, I got life....."
Nina Simone
This morning I had fabulous news. My friend Nat, who is still battling ovarian cancer, has had the best news today. Thanks to Avastin, her tumours are FINALLY shrinking, and her CA 125 is the lowest it has been since she started her head to head with this hideous disease. Yes, she has a few side effects, but they are only due to the treatment itself and will stop when the treatment ends.
I think this will be the best Thanksgiving Nat has ever had! It certainly made my day. Please see Nat's blog here. It makes for interesting reading.
Having seen this result, and knowing what a difference this drug has made to my friend, it astounds me that we [and I mean ANY of us] can actually put a price on someone's life and deny them a chance of survival. How nauseating is that? And what does it say about society now? I am a bit startled by this article. And I notice they only say that it can be used for bowel cancer. No mention of the effects on ovarian cancer.
Then again, I think it's only the UK that actually HAS an almost free state healthcare service? I suppose we can't have everything. In the States they have cutting edge technology with regard to drugs and research, here we have to wait. But in the US they have to pay or die, here we get everything free.
So sad we can't have both. Cutting edge technology AND free medical healthcare for everyone. But then if it was a perfect world, no-one would have cancer in the first place would they?
New hope over bowel cancer drug (UKPA) – 14 hours ago
"Pharmaceutical giant Roche is hoping to strike a deal with a health watchdog after experts rejected a bowel cancer drug for use on the NHS.
Avastin (bevacizumab), which costs about £1,800 a month, has been shown to shrink tumours in 78% of patients when it is added to chemotherapy drugs capecitabine and oxaliplatin. This could make them eligible for surgery although the drug is not a cure.
Avastin is suitable for patients with advanced (metastatic) bowel cancer, where the disease has spread around the body, and could potentially extend the lives of some 6,000 people a year in the UK.
Roche offered a patient access scheme to reduce the cost of Avastin, which would have seen a cap on its cost at 12 months and free oxaliplatin. Roche said this would have reduced the price to £36,000 per quality adjusted life year (QALY), above the £30,000 threshold used by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) which rejected the drug in a draft recommendation.
In a statement, Roche said it was "confident" it could continue to work with Nice to make Avastin available.
"The UK is now virtually the only country in the developed world not to provide Avastin for bowel cancer through the state healthcare service," the statement said.
John Melville, general manager at Roche UK, said: "We are in an unfortunate passport prescribing situation with Avastin whereby patients in Australia, Canada and most of Europe gain access, but patients in the UK, Latvia and Poland don't."
In clinical trials, adding Avastin to oxaliplatin-based chemotherapy typically increased survival to 21.3 months from 19.9 months with chemotherapy."
the weather here is completely repulsive! I say this because this morning it was sunny and dry – perfect gardening weather, even though it's cold. But this evening we appear to have a Force 10 gale!! [+ rain!!] Whilst it was sunny I dug up a great big Phlox for my neighbour, George. I have three massive ones that I had from my Mum, as she doesn't like them, so we dug them all up out of her garden and relocated them in ours. I love them! They flower for ages, and if you deadhead them they flower again.
But George the Neighbour was concerned that I only had pink ones. He took it upon himself to split one of his red ones and bring me half. Then he bought me a purple one at the Sunday market. So the least I could do was dig up one of the pink ones and give it to him. And this morning was perfect for digging. After much sweeping of leaves mind you. In Wellingtons. The Wisteria is a plague in the Autumn – leaves everywhere, and not in a very organised fashion either – it takes weeks to drop all of them. The driveway was a nightmare, getting out of the car and wading through a metre deep of the beastly things. So lots of sweeping was in order. And I don't like sweeping – it does my stomach in. But probably it's good for me, so I do it anyway. Plus there's the danger of drowning in leaves if I don't!
Right now I am listening to the howling wind and pouring rain. We have the wood burner on the go, so the house is lovely and warm – sometimes cold days can be wonderful. Once you are snuggled up on the sofa by the fire anyway!
Every time I do things in the garden now, I remember this time last year, looking out of my office window and wondering if I'd ever have the energy to dig things up again. The body is a wonderful thing – only one year ago now, I couldn't manage to open a jar top never mind lift and wield a garden fork. Now I am back to normal. Almost – I get exhausted more easily, but then again, I am a bit older right? Plus it takes ages to get over being blasted by chemo. And I have been battered half to death by cancer first, then chemo second.
So, I feel I am doing really well. I feel GOOD as James Brown said…Whoa! I feel nice, like sugar and spice!!
you know what I find amazing about blogging? The 'feed back'. The comments. It's the thing that makes blogging fun – the thing that makes us a big group; the thing that allows us to connect and interconnect. The thing that makes us friends, even though we have never and may never meet one another in 'real life'. This cyber life is amazing – I know [as in 'know'] so many women through my blog. I may never meet them. I would love to. But I don't need to. Not really. They are there for me even though they have never seen me in the flesh. They remark on my ramblings, they support me when I am going crazy…they laugh at me when I am too serious. They talk to me when I am alone. They ballast me when I am drowning.
Thanks to all the women who comment on my blog. You have no idea how much it means to me.
Cancer is a revolting subject. And yet these women never fail me with their witty / meaningful / heartfelt / mad remarks. You rock girls. And thank you.
