Today’s Voice of Kidney Cancer is Johanna Allen. She writes about losing her mother to the disease and how hard it was when they ran out of treatment options. Her story is a call to action for more kidney cancer research – so no doctor has to say and no patient has to hear, “we have no more options.” We couldn’t agree more. Thank you Johanna.
In July 2006 my then 50-year old mom was diagnosed with Renal Cell Carcinoma. During the initial Oncology visit the doctor was very optimistic, stating that we would fight this together as there were several treatment options available. On the way home, my mom and I were obviously devastated but kept our hopes up. I remember looking at her and saying …we won’t stop until all options are exhausted, or you tell me otherwise.
In 2007 we learned that this evil disease had metastasized to her lungs. At this point she had been on 3 different drugs as well as radiation…apparently all in vain.
We met with her Oncologist and I could tell the news wasn’t good…she sat there with obvious guilt and said the words “we have done all we can do, there are no more options”. I immediately went into a rant…” what do you mean? You told us that we had several options? She’s only been given 3 medications! You mean to tell me that we have the ability to submerge submarines and fly jets across the globe but you can’t help her? My god there has to be something else you can do for her!” Then it hit me; I had just shot the messenger, and boy did I unload the entire clip. I then realized that she dreaded to say those words almost as much as we dreaded hearing them, but she had grown accustomed to it, not even flinching while repeating the rehearsed words.
My mom passed away in 2008, as she took her last breath I whispered in her ear “I wish I could go with you” …and a part of me did. My wish in sharing her story is that we continue to pour our hearts and resources into research. No human should ever endure hearing the words we have done all we can do for you, no human should ever have to live without someone they love dearly, and no Doctor should ever have to repeat the words you have no more options.
