KNIGHT CANCER INSTITUTE: SECOND OPINION ON SECOND OPINIONS

The Knight Cancer Institute has been on my mind since its inception.

Why would a sports company founder devote huge resources to starting a cancer institute?

It wasn’t a one time donation.

Yesterday the Institute pulled in another $2 billion.

It’s a big story built on little stories like this:

I found a lump on my neck, more accurately my wife found a lump on my neck.

What I thought was a new muscle turned out to be cancer.

Click this link to see the page I wrote about it so I don’t have to write about it every time I bring it up.

At first I was hyped up to get things going to show I wouldn’t be a dead-ass, a drag-ass, or any other kind of ass for cancer.

My motto then: Fuck Cancer.

My motto now: Fuck Cancer.

I would be on time, not complain, and do whatever needed to fuck cancer up.

After all of the investigative medical work from scans to fine needles, I met with a cancer doctor in his chemo clinic.

This is the key part:

After reviewing my particular case the doctor prescribed three separate chemo-therapies, and a chemo pump.

Was I alarmed? Nope. Give me all of it, everything. Throw another chemo in there for good measure. Two pumps. Fuck that cancer.

Fuck cancer with every ounce of fire juice you’ve got. Hose that shit down, brother.

It was an evening interview after business hours, but I was ready to start right there.

Stab me in the arm, the leg, the neck. That cancer isn’t going to cure itself. Let’s fucking go.

 

I wanted the good doctor to know I was on the team, that I’d run through the marathon wall at mile seventeen, I’d bite off more than I could chew and still get it down.

I’d take all the chemo he had and then some.

This was before I knew anything about chemo and ravaging path it burns through the body, your body, my body.

This was before I knew anything about radiation treatment.

I was a quick learner. My wife was quicker. Shocking, I know.

 

Knight Cancer Institute Second Opinion

“Cancer does not discriminate. Neither will we. Bold moves only. Cancer doesn’t see us coming.

This fight is and always will be personal. We know what we gotta do.”

 

Me: Well, that turned out well. Now we know what to do.

Wife: We know we’ll get a second opinion on treatment.

Me: Honey, listen, cancer is cancer, treatment is treatment. How different can they be? This is the guy.

Wife: We’ll know after the second opinion.

Me: That cancer isn’t going to cure itself honey. It’s growing every minute.

Wife: Which is why a second opinion is important.

 

I learned one of the chemos on the program would make my hair fall out, so I got the worst haircut of my life, a real chopper, to be glad it dropped.

The Knight Cancer Institute chemo clinic was in the same building as the first clinic.

Again, an after-hours interview.

Dr. Yee reviewed my case and prescribed the treatment: one chemo.

Of course I questioned his opinion since I was a chemo expert.

I need three chemos and a pump for all the cancer in there and who knows where else.

Not according to the research and recommendations available through the Knight Cancer Institute.

I’ve repeated that enough?

With Dr. Yee, I learned more about cancer and cancer treatment than I expected.

For every kind of cancer, and the variations, there’s a specific treatment.

All I wanted to know was how soon I could start and how fast I could finish.

And if my hair falls out.

 

Me: Will I lose my hair?

Dr. Yee: No.

 

Now I was stuck with a shitty haircut, and cancer?

 

$2 Billion To Knight Cancer Institute. For What?

“Penny and Phil Knight have always challenged us to do what no one else is doing,” Dr. Druker said. “It can seem impossible to navigate the health care system after being diagnosed with cancer.

We’re going to change that. We have revolutionized the way we detect and treat cancer.

Now we are going to transform the way we care for patients while continuing to develop innovative treatments.”

With the magnitude of this mission, the Knight Cancer Institute will become self-governed within OHSU. To accomplish this, the Knight Cancer Group will be created to lead the Knight Cancer Institute and manage OHSU’s cancer services.

It will have its own board of directors and Dr. Druker will be the inaugural president of this new organization.

 

While I going through the grind of chemo and radiation I asked a few questions.

Some of them are included in the 410 posts tagged for cancer.

My radiation guy had the huge book of clinical radiation in his office.

I asked if he read it, as a joke.

He said he’d read it and then wrote the study guide so doctors around the world could do a better job.

I asked the folks at the infusion clinic about the Knight Institute money to pass time during the hook-up.

They said it is used to buy clinics and recruit doctors with the express goal of curing cancer as we know it.

 

And the investment allowed the Knight Cancer Institute to continue to lead in targeted therapies and precision medicine.

 

Without targeted therapies and precision medicine I would have been cooked by three chemos and a pump and fried by radiation.

This is the conclusion I came to after getting cooked by one chemo.

Some of the patients I talked to, guys who had gone through what I was, said their teeth turned weak and chalky, their saliva had dried up, their thyroid stopped working.

They said they had chemo fog-brain, an arm that pumped up twice the size after an infusion, no sense of smell or taste, and a food aversion with a gag reflex.

It’s endless, but time marches on.

 

Here’s what I figure the Knight Cancer Institute is up to: timing.

They want to cut the number of patients getting over-medicated at for-profit cancer clinics.

They want to educate patients about targeted therapies and precision medicine.

If I had gone with three chemos and a chemo pump, based on my experience with one chemo, I would have had a poor outcome.

Would the cure be worse than the condition?

You might feel like death warmed over, you might look like death warmed over, but there’s a certain confidence you get on the way down the chemo-drain at a Knight clinic.

From doctor recruitment, to research, the clinical application, you know you’ll make it back.

You’ll regain your health and vitality and look back in happy gratitude for making the right decision on the second opinion.

With an extra $2 billion in the account, more people will find their way back from the nightmare of, “Yes, the results have some back. Please sit down.”