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How I spent my summer vacation, By Justin Taylor.

Well, it sucked, that's how I spent my summer vacation.

And when you consider the last couple of years, that's going some.

I told you how I'd been accepted into this experimental cancer program at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

I'm not an idiot. I know that they're trying the experimental stuff because none of the normal treatments are doing shit.

The idea here was to get me into this nifty program—which is free because it's experimental and all which is good because even with insurance we're like almost three hundred thousand dollars in the hole and Mom may have to declare bankruptcy—anyway, I'm in the program and they use you like a guinea pig. It's supported by your tax dollars and they do a lot of important research there; they're working on AIDS and cancer and whatever else they're working on.

Here's how it went:

In the beginning of the summer the doctors did a lot of testing, both on my family and me. My blood family, I mean. People I share a gene pool with. Molly was the closest match for a bone marrow donation so she got lucky.

I went down to Maryland and did the usual round of stuff; blood work, respiratory workups and all the rest of it, CAT's MRI's, everything. Then Brian and I moved down there to a dorm like wing and they began this really strong round of chemo to kill off what little was left of my immune system.

That was fun, let me tell you. Before—over the last two years— they did chemo, but it wasn't designed to destroy anything except the cancer—which it didn't succeed in doing anyway. This time they were purposely trying to kill off an entire body function, at least temporarily. I guess it worked, too. I know I've probably never felt worse. My hair was gone, again and I threw up a lot, but that's becoming almost normal for me so what the fuck. There were problems, though. I was reacting badly and the side effects were bad enough that the doctors had to do MRI's or CAT's almost every day. I mean that for real. I'd have like five CAT scans a week. Well, it's not like I had anything else to do, you know?

Then when all that was finishing up they brought Molly down here for the weekend and she was attached to this machine that resembled a dialysis machine for like six hours straight. They took her blood and put it through this machine and it extracted bone marrow. Don't ask me how it worked, but it did and at least she didn't have to have actually surgery or anything. It was pretty easy on her and I was really happy about that. I really was. She's had to deal with all the fall out from my being sick and now she's even bleeding for me. At least it didn't hurt her more than a couple of needle sticks. She's really gotten the short end of this thing—I have Mom and all the attention and sympathy, but she's been shoved into the background. It's not fair, but not much is, is it?

Then they gave me her marrow through an IV drip.

The idea is that the marrow somehow contains some stem cells and they're supposed to somehow target the tumors and the cancer cells and—stem cells being the wunderkind they are—they're supposed to make healthy cells instead of diseased ones.

Fucking Bush wants this stuff outlawed. You want to see what he'd do if one of the twins had what I do? Stem cell research would be mandatory. God, I hate him.

Anyway, the theory sounds good, but there are a couple of problems.

First of all, because bone marrow counts as an organ transplant, I had to spend the next six to eight weeks locked in an isolation ward…they had to kill my immune system, remember? They didn't want to take any chance of infection when there was nothing I could do about it. Talk about boring. God, I felt like I was in jail.

Oh, of course they're nice and there are DVD's and games and books and all of that, but it was still being locked up.

Second, it's never worked. The treatment, I mean—it hasn't worked on anyone. Not on anyone. Nobody. No Body.

I don't think it's even worked on mice, but I could be the first.

That wasn't sarcastic, by the way. I really may be the first. That's the hope. I know as well as anyone it's a long shot, but when nothing else is working, you take what's offered, you know? I think that this may be one of the last games in town. That's the way my grandfather would have put it, not to me, of course, but that's what he would have thought.

So I got the transplant and I'm in isolation for a few weeks and somehow, I've no idea how, I got a cold.

It was just a cold, I swear, but because of the thing I had to be moved to a separate facility so I wouldn't contaminate anyone else with the germs.

A cold doesn't sound like much, does it?

Well, remember that I have no immune system, nothing to fight it off with and so then I ended up with pneumonia. Now that was a problem because I have these malignant tumors in my lungs.

What can I say? I am a walking house of cards.

So finally after a few weeks they got rid of the pneumonia and that was pretty bad and then I had to go back into isolation. Have you ever wanted to be alone? Sure you have, everyone does now and then. I, on the other hand, would have given my arm to be able to open a window or walk outside. Even when Brian or Mom came o visit they had to wear the whole surgical scrub/mask get up. I know, I understand it; it's just so—depressing.

Around the time I was finally, finally due to finish the isolation there was another little bump in the road.

You know, after a while you don't even react anymore. You just sort of nod or shrug and say, `okay, here we go again'. One of the CAT's showed more tumors popping up in my chest. That was the bad news. The good news was that they're near the surface, not buried deep inside and they're not too big yet. I mean, I guess that's good news.

So we go back to chemo.

I got out of isolation and five days later I'm back in chemo—delivered by pills this time, and then I'll need probably five day a week radiation.

Now the pisser to this is that I can't go back to the classes I was taking. Remember how I was taking English and Composition and Literature classes at that college? I can't do that now because first of all I have to be in Maryland for the treatment and secondly I have to stay away from crowds for two years or so. That's because of the transplant, I'm told. I'll be taking classes over the Internet, but I really liked those classes.

I really did. I'd go into a classroom and even though I was bald and wearing a hat when it was eighty degrees, no one treated me like a victim or handed me pity or any of that stuff I get everyday.

I'm really going to miss those classes.

A lot.

So after all this, after the time spent a Sloan Kettering and the surgery and more time at Sloan and the time in chemo and radiation at the other hospitals and the experimental stuff, after losing my hair and losing it again and then one more time, after all the side effects and the mouth sores and the fissures and losing so much weight that I can't believe how thin I am now—after all of this, after my family being consumed with this and my Mom hanging on by her fingernails and the financial ruin they're all facing, after the aborted college and the dances and things I could only go to because someone felt sorry for me, after seeing what this is doing to my sister and my lover and my friends, after all of this the tumors are still growing and multiplying.

I'm not getting better, I'm getting worse.

Now it turns out that even though the doctors thought that I could go home in September and maybe rest up and recover there and see my friends and sleep in my own bed and all of that—now they say that because of the new tumors, and let's by all means not forget about the old ones, either—now I have to stay in Maryland for the radiation. The chemo is just pills this time, it's easy, but the radiation has to be done at NIH because it's free there and we're broke now.

I guess Brian will drive me down every Tuesday and then take me back home for the weekend. That's the plan now, anyway.

Three years since this started and now I'm nineteen and a half.

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Please note: To those who don't know or have simply forgotten, Remission is the admittedly thinly veiled true account of a family friend who is suffering from cancer. I have been tracing her fight against her disease and update the story when warranted. I'm not a medical person and claim no expertise. The information is from Lisa's mother who not only deals with this daily, but is also a RN. Both women amaze me.  Friends continue to donate platelets to Lisa and to do what little can be done to help, be it a dinner invitation out or a simple game night at someone's house. One friend offered the use of her beach house to the family.

Hopefully the experimental stem cell treatment will help.

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