Continuing Experiments

     "During November and December of 2013 I was going through a treatment. Every month I would get my blood drawn. The tumor marker was still continuing to go up. It was obvious after these two months of being on this treatment of  shots, that it was not working and we would have to try something else. Actually that was December and this is January. My wonderful oncologist  M Lu was aware of a clinical trial that they were going to do over in San Francisco at UCSF at University of California at San Francisco and she wanted to get me into that clinical trial.

     "It was new – they would – do some – it was a radiation type clinical trial that they were doing. She – they started putting the paperwork in and trying to get it approved by Kaiser so that I could qualify for this trial. If it’s not approved then they won’t pay for it, but if it is approved Kaiser will  pay for it. They finally got all the ducks in a row, the first of March. 

     "So they called me on that Monday saying, “We need you – I was actually subbing at the school that day – they said we need you in here right now, you need to get off work because we need to get all of these tests done, blood work done, and EKG , echocardiogram, your blood drawn, urinalysis, and [UTC] scan so that we can get you qualified for this particular clinical trial.  I said, “I can’t leave school (I was a relief sub that day) but I’ll get there as soon as I can.” 

     "I also called down to Kaiser so by the next morning at nine o’clock I had everything done. Then I waited. Then about noon that day I got a phone call from Kaiser saying the oncologist at UCSF needs to meet with you today, she has an appointment today at 4 o’clock you need to be there. Yes, I was scrambling to make sure that Kylie was taken care of and getting a hold of Ralph because he needed to come with me. 

     "We headed for the city, got in there and – Funny story while we were driving in for our very first visit with her, this was our first time onto the new span of the Bay Bridge. As we were driving in we realized that there was this truck on the side of the span that had a flat tire but it was also being chased by several police cars. 

     "Then we realized that all the traffic behind us was stopped and they were letting this vehicle go on the bridge. So we were on the bridge and we stopped, and all the traffic behind us was stopped, but we’d gone further a little ways than everybody else and we were all alone on the Bay Bridge, we drove a little bit further and a little bit further and then we stopped for awhile and then they let the traffic go. 

     "It was kind of funny, so I will always remember that for the first time going into San Francisco on that Bay Bridge we were headed into meet the oncologist. The oncologist was Dr. Hoope I was very impressed with her, very through – she met with us for about an hour and a half. Asking all kinds of questions, getting all of my history, just getting all the information she could to learn about me to see if I could qualify, what treatments they had done, and how I’ve reacted, looking at all my records.

     " There is a lovely young lady by the name of Ivy Wong who was the research coordinator for this particular study they were doing this clinical trial. We also met with the others, she pulled in Dr. Rodney Stuffie who is an oncologist a radiation oncologist. So after lots and lots of questions and I asked do we qualify? And she said, “Yes you do”."

This is the last recording and though she did go through this particular trial, she was the only one who survived it. Pam Hosking told me in an interview: "The last experimental drug therapy – which basically burned her body out, “She is the only person to have survived the treatment.” 

The problem with Inflammatory Breast Cancer is that there are so few woman who live past five years that there isn't any protocol, it is mostly experiements with different kinds of thearpies to try.