USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: La Vonda R. Staples: Good News And More Rough Road Ahead

I admire your courage, keep it up.

CAO.

On Tuesday, 24 September 2013 06:18:08 UTC+1, La Vonda R. Staples wrote:

Hello to you all,

I will make this short.  First and foremost please let me thank everyone for adding to the strength of my family and friends through this journey.  I have all of you in my home, in spirit, and tangible presence.  As soon as anyone walks into my living room they are greeted with nearly 100 get well, best wishes, and thinking of you (me) cards on two shelves which were installed for that sole purpose.  If it is too personal to say so I don't care, I love you.  I think of this forum as if it is a single, warm and loving entity.  You lift me up.  You all keep me academically abreast.  And you also, occasionally, give me a much needed kick of passion.  A little intellectual ire is very good for my soul.  You keep me alive.  

My cancer has now spread to my kidneys.  That brings the total to my liver, gall bladder, lungs, stomach and please God don't let it go any further.  As you already know I have a cancer which comes from my genes, DNA.  There was no cause and it is a ferocious disorder which has yet to be cured.  Nearly sixty percent of the unfortunate sufferers die within six months.  Death comes from the liver and is signaled via jaundice.  When I was first diagnosed I was told that my gallbladder was completely compromised and that surgery would only make my situation worse.  

We started with the first chemo treatment and after two months the cancer had advanced to my stomach and lungs, however, the treatment did shrink my liver tumors considerably.  The advancement in my lungs and stomach was in the form of lesions.  That treatment was stopped and a more aggressive approach was begun.  

This new treatment is in three phases.  A cocktail of three chemo drugs administered over about five hours, a fourth drug which is administered via a needle instead of an IV drip, and a third drug which is so caustic that an infinitesimal amount is delivered over 46 hours (about a quart of the drug is in an IV bag and the treatment is done in the hospital).  I was hospitalized for three cycles of this protocol (over about two months).  The CT scan for results was done last Monday.  This is when it was found that the cancer had spread to my kidneys as well.  The results are miraculous.  The report has stopped using the term "tumor" and switched to "nodes."  There was a single node which increased.  This one is located in my kidney and it increased from 9 mm to 11mm.  The rest of the nodes were all decreased by as much as half and there were many which were "resolved (they're gone)."  

My cancer team has decided to proceed with three more cycles over a longer span of time.  They're switching from a treatment every two weeks to one treatment per three weeks.  And I am also happy to report that there is no longer a required hospitalization.   This treatment zaps all of my energy.  My weight is down a total of 63 pounds.  To compound my discomfort chemotherapy plunged me into menopause.  I'm hot.  I sweat.  My temper is volcanic.  I have to say that I'm sorry an awful lot.  

Please continue to pray for me and my family.  I move through my day and my duties as mother as best as possible.  My sons have moved into our new home and help me to stay sane.  They nicely leave piles of laundry for me so that I won't get bored.  And they keep my cooking skills up to par by rousing me from my bed and demanding large soul food dinners.  Isn't that nice?  My youngest child, Sarah, has won a great honour.  She earned it through all of this chaos.  She has earned an academic letter for her first year in high school.  She finished with a 3.8 average.  She was also chosen for an internship at Boeing.  We have enrolled her in the Princeton ACT course which is given through a pre-collegiate program at the University of Missouri at St. Louis.  In addition, she is also enrolled in a fairly new program sponsored and held at Washington University.  It is a pre-med program where children can take courses which give an overview to various medical fields (as a doctor and/or medical professor - it's not a job training program for say, a nursing home worker, not that anything is bad about that - just want to be clear).  She is doing very well in her AP courses.  And we have decided to continue her musical education by turning our living room into a place where she can have a piano and take classical piano lessons.  My only wish in this world is that Sarah can live her dreams of graduating from Harvard and becoming a pathologist.  

That's it for now.  The next CT scan will be after three more cycles so that means about 10 more weeks until another review.  

Thank you so very much for everything you've done for us.  I keep all of you in my prayers.  And some of you are remembered to my God by name.  

La Vonda R. Staples

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.