Message 3: Update

From: Suliman Dregia
To:
Sent: Sunday, November 9, 2008 2:58:53 PM
Subject: Update

Dear family and friends:

It has been while, and an update is past due.

Hana came home on 10/25, and she has been recovering very well and adjusting her eating habits and choices. Couscous does not work very well! But she is able to eat a lot other things. She still needs to tune her response to the hunger stimulus, keeping to small portions even though the stimulus can be intense.

As many of you know, the cell pathology tests found cancer cells in a few lymph nodes (4 out of 27 tested). Of course that means Hana will be going on a regiment of chemo- and radiation therapy. I believe the doctors would have recommended the same even if the pathology results were negative because it could have been a false negative. The lymph nodes were around/close to the tumor. Also, the report said the cells were very well differentiated. Apparently cancer cells "devolve" or regress toward their origin, and become more like stem cells over time. Their being well differentiated is an indication that they are young, and they have not had long to de-differentiate. The doctors' position is they have taken out all the known cancer, and now they must throw everything at it, with the aim of preventing it from coming back.

The treatment is scheduled to begin on November 17th. There will be periods of treatment and periods of recovery, and the whole process will take about 20 weeks (5 months). We know it will be tough, and we will find out how tough in due course. But the fight will continue, and our hopes will remain high.

Thanks for your support. It is still and will continue to be effective and needed.

Suliman

!