Sybil Update 12/11/00

Haven't been updating this so much since Sybil is emailing many people. Still, I know she doesn't email everyone. I've been helping her get her web site going, so I think we'll have something ready soon. I'm going to continue to put up my own perspective here but you will no doubt get more detailed information about Sybil's treatment on her site.

I look at that last sentence, about me giving my own perspective, and give an ironic chuckle inside. Sometimes I get surreal comments from people such as "does she still have cancer?" (with surprised tone). This makes me feel like the shell-shocked Viet Nam veteran the young High School grads try to talk to in the bar at the beginning of "The Deerhunter". He's unable to explain anything about Viet Nam to them. Of course I'm a lot more hopeful. I think I can explain something about cancer to you and will continue to try a bit. However, I know I'll never come close to painting a complete picture.

Let me return to the news. We do have the results from another CAT scan. They were far from the euphoria of the previous scan, but not disastrous -- and at this point we regard anything that isn't disastrous as a significant victory. On the bad side, her large (but not nearly as large as it once was) liver tumor has grown a bit and she has some new mets, mostly in the lung area. On the plus side, her bone mets continues to hold steady and nothing has grown at the previous frighteningly fast rate. Some tumors have shrunk a bit. She's going to get another brain scan today. If that holds steady as well I'll be feeling very good.

She's doing OK. She's anemic again and they are once again threatening blood transfusion, so we've taken her off her usual vegetarian diet and trying to get her to both exercise and rest more. Overall though, she continues to be light years ahead, with regard to quality of life, of where she was a few months back. Her energy is good and she still spends far too much time trying to get every cancer patient to try her treatment. We continue to pray and give thanks every day.

Sybil has basically taken complete control of her treatment and is making a slight change. She's decided to take 25mg of Cytoxan, every other day. She's also increasing her Celebrex dose to 600mg a day. She's still on the steroids, but only taking 1mg of Decadron, down from 32mg a day.

Matt Donath

Mdonath@yahoo.com