Post- HIPEC Treatment: 2012 - 2015

Life after Paul's HIPEC surgery was good. Real good. He was considered 'NED' (no evidence of disease) and required no further treatment beyond quarterly CT scans to make sure things stayed that way.
I'm likely romanticizing those first two years of marriage (there I go again), but most of my memories look like this:

Super Fantastic Explosion of FUN!!!

We camped and took roadtrips in my old Volvo wagon and met interesting hippie folks at festivals and visited vineyards and had lots of bar-b-ques and hiked and watched Dexter. We also made this exquisite creature:

Ingrid Philomena Coleman - born July 29, 2014

In August, with a proud, springy gait that is the hallmark of new fathers, Paul went in for his routine scan. That's what his CT scans had become to us: entirely ordinary, unremarkable check-ups. Just part of our routine. At that time I was, for some reason, extremely...I don't know. Naive? Yes. Silly and naive about what we were dealing with here.

Mesothelioma is a bear.

It's viciously aggressive and, in our case, brutally cruel with its timing.

"Liz. Something came up on the scan. They think it's back."

I was gutted. I hadn't even fully healed from the messy ordeal that is childbirth yet, and my husband was on the phone telling me he has cancer. Again.

A week or two later they did a biopsy, which confirmed their suspicions: it's the blasted Meso. Oh, Paul. Sweet, handsome, hilarious Paul. Just stop. Stop having this bloody cancer. Stop so we can be young and new and happy forever.

Sept-Nov 2014: Paul receives two (dreadful, awful, mean) chemotherapies - Alitma and Cisplatin. They don't work.

New Year's Eve, 2014: Dr. Kane attempts another debulking surgery. It doesn't work.

Ok, Meso. We get it: you're bigger than us and a bit of a bully. Can you just be cool for like one minute, dude, and give us a win? Just something small, to make us feel better about the world and stuff.

January 2015: Meso tells us to piss off, but our family and friends and total strangers won't take that for an answer. So they turn themselves into a massive safety net and make sure we are fed and loved and taken care of. They even throw us a huge benefit, raising funds to help us with the mounting debt that happens when you have stupid cancer. People are incredible. I can't even tell you.

February 2015: We look into clinical trials and start traveling to meet with Mesothelioma specialists. First stop: Chicago. Where we have deep dish pizza. And meet with Dr. Kindler. But pizza!

So: oversimplifying here, obviously. Even with our warm and fuzzy safety net and the life-altering experience of tasting Chicago deep dish for the first time, those were some rough months. Looking back, I can see very clearly that I had a severe case of post-partum depression that my stupidhead self ignored. Don't be like me. If you can't get through a day without ugly-crying 16 times, um, get help.

March 2015: We attend a Mesothelioma Symposium in Bethesda, Maryland. Major turning point. Major. We connect with Dr. Hassan's team at the National Institute of Heath. We meet, for the first time, other people fighting like Paul. Meso becomes less scary. Still a bully, yeah. But we discover this jerk does have weaknesses, and we are getting back in the ring. And this time, I am going to be the hot cheerleader wife my partner needs. Hey Meso! That's right, I'm talking to you! GO STICK IT.

April - May 2015: Paul enrolls in the SS1P clinical trial at the NIH. He makes it through two cycles, but is booted in June when his body develops an antibody to the drug. We're bummed, but just gotta keep on keepin' on.

September 2015: Paul receives the first bit of good news he's had in the last year: his tumors ARE SHRINKING!!!!! Wahoooo! Finally, his tumors had responded to something. We were overjoyed. 

Kayaking for Meso: 2015 - Raising funds for the Mesothelioma Foundation