Cycling Around

Immediately after Faina's surgery on August 12 and the results of testing were in, a new question arose, "Should Faina go through the post-operative three cycles of chemotherapy?" Dr. Schulick, the surgeon, thought not, after all he cut out the cancer. Her oncologist, Dr. Koutrelakos, similarly advised, "No, there are no signs of cancer." Dr. Gelmann at Columbia-Presbyterian and Dr. Meng at Sloan-Kettering said, "Yes ... that is the protocol." Complications from surgery, most notably the fistula, rendered any serious consideration of further chemotherapy more an academic exercise than anything else. Now, with that obstacle out of the way, the question became, once again, a viable challenge.

After weeks of physician appointments, emails, research, and a wide range of advisors; with physicians consulting physicians; the professionals left the decision up to Faina. Dr. Bui, a radiation oncologist and professor at University of Maryland, Greenebaum Cancer Center, proposed that radiation would not be needed, but that going ahead with chemo would at minimum do no harm (given her history of tolerating the treatment), could be beneficial, and should the cancer reoccur she would not have the lingering doubt that she had not done everything she could have to prevent it. That was the confirmation Faina needed as that was her inclination all along.

The three three-week cycles begin on Tuesday.