Category Archives: breast cancer

Summer, Scans & Science

June 4, 2025

Happy summer my friends. In Colorado we are starting off with a cool, wet one which is great for the a/c bill but less ideal for exploring outside.

Lot’s going on here including medically.

I had some work travel last month and towards the end I started not feeling well, including being light headed. I mentioned this to my oncology nurse 2 days ago during my treatment appointments and she scheduled a brain MRI and echocardiogram. Yes, light headedness triggers the immediate thought of brain metastasis.

Recall from my last post that we’ve found the MRI to be the best imaging for me. The brain MRI captures the head and top part of the spine (cervical). Mixed results: no brain metastasis 🙌 but it did pick up a new lesion on my C1 vertebrae 👎.

The nerves that come out of the C1 impact the sides of your face and head as shown in this nifty diagram (one of my fav diagrams BTW).

The most likely explanation for my light headedness is that the lesion (tumor) is pressing on the nerves. So, my oncologist has ordered another PET/CT to check again. It seems a little insane to keep getting imaging that doesn’t work so well – I guess he wants to confirm or look for other lesions.

My tumor markers did drop the end of last month which is in contradiction to the new tumor.

See how complicated and tricky cancer is?

For now, I’ll get the PET/CT and an echocardiogram and keep doing all the things (eating healthy, moving, relaxing) and we shall see where this takes me.

After my work trip I spent 2 days in Chicago at the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) where I learned about new treatment lines coming out and connecting with other patient advocates.

The cancer research going on now will result in the drugs being used in the coming years. This is why it is so important to preserve funding for the National Institutes of Health. The presidents budget slashes funding by almost 50%. That means many fewer clinical trials and many fewer drugs in 5 years. No one expects to get cancer. If you get cancer in 5 years you will be wishing the NIH had done more research to help you. Please call your elected federal reps and push for restoring funding to NIH.

On a lighter note – Maddy graduated from high school, Evelyn started a research internship at University Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and we all head to Las Vegas at the end of the month to support Maddy in her last National Dance Competition.

Onward!

Amir humored me with a selfie in front of the MRI machine
Maddy’s pre-professional company
The ASCO meeting was huge with 50,000 attendees
Grateful Nancy could come for the graduation
My 2 favorite future engineers.

Please help end restrictions on National Institute of Health ❤️‍🩹

Hi everyone –

It’s been an interesting week, regardless of who you are and what you support. I’m writing because one of the Executive Orders this week puts a freeze on communications from many Federal agencies including Health and Human Services (HHS) and the National Institute of Health (NIH).

This is a serious situation as it is already putting cancer research at risk. I work closely with a breast cancer researcher at the University of Colorado (Dr. Matt Sikora) who conducts basic research through grants from NIH. Based on communications he received, it looks like his research lab may lose funding. This funding supports the basic cancer research that leads to new treatments. We all know how I feel about new treatments!

Well, that is a lot. What can I do as one individual?

I ask that you take 10-15 minutes to send an email to your elected members of Congress (you have 2 state Senators and 1 Representative). Believe it or not, staffers count the number of communications they get from constituents on a particular topic. While you might get a form letter response, don’t get discouraged. They will count your email! It will make a difference.

To help you, Dr. Sikora has drafted a sample email and provided links to find contact info for your elected reps as well as a link to where you can find the economic impact of cancer research in your state.

I’m happy to help anyone if you need it. Thanks for your consideration. Cancer has long been a non-partisan issue and should stay that way.

Onward!

Sample email text (you need to change things in bold)

Dear [congressperson]:

I am writing due to grave concerns with the freezing of communications at Federal agencies. Specifically, I am writing regarding HHS and the National Institutes of Health, including the indefinite suspension of council review meetings, review study sections, and travel. Suspension of these meetings and review sections jeopardizes biomedical research funding nationwide.

Currently, our state of Colorado receives nearly $600 million in funding for biomedical research from NIH, supporting over 7,000 highly skilled jobs and driving over $1.5 billion in economic activity. As a concerned constituent living in [Denver], and as a [patient living with cancer/research advocate/caregiver/etc], I urge you to make sure that money that has been allocated for NIH extramural funding, including all training and workforce development grants, remains committed. Loss of this funding would be disastrous for our local economy, and would drive major job loss including in highly trained university biomedical research personnel, including graduate students and postdoctoral trainees that make up the next generation of biomedical researchers.

NIH has always benefitted from robust bipartisan support, and I urge you to continue to commit Federal support to the NIH mission and extramural program, which ensures that our nation remains at the forefront of biomedical research innovations and advances in patient care.

Sincerely,

[name]

–Other state funding data can be found here: https://www.unitedformedicalresearch.org/nih-in-your-state

— Reps by address can be found here: https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member