After a number of confused conversations in the aftermath of the previous posting, Karen and I have decided that we needed to make a bit of a clarification about her current condition.
First off, she's clearly doing much better than she has in quite a long time. And her recent PET scan was stellar, with essentially no evidence of disease. That, too, is pretty awesome. But unfortunately this does not mean she is in remission or cured or really even cancer-free. The Zykadia is doing pretty much just what the crizotinib did starting 22 months ago: it is stomping the cancer flat and tremendously improving her quality of life.
But the bottom line is that this treatment, like all that have preceded it and those that will follow, is only buying her time and will not eradicate the disease and return her to a normal life. Eventually the cancer's exuberant embrace of Darwinism will lead us to a point where it adapts, stops responding to the medication, and reasserts itself. The odds are that at some point in 2015 life is going to get extremely interesting in all the wrong ways.
I sincerely apologize if my earlier post led anyone to believe that something near miraculous had occurred here. And I'm just as regretful if this clarification comes as a rude surprise to anyone, as well. I will endeavor to be clearer going forward.
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