A Helping of Second and Third Opinions

Getting a third opinion probably didn't save my life, but it definitely bought me more time.

BY Sarah DeBord

PUBLISHED September 26, 2018

Sarah DeBord was diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer at age 34. In the years since, she has turned her diagnosis into a calling, and become an advocate for other young adults diagnosed with colorectal cancer and parents with young families facing cancer. She works as a communications and program manager for the Minneapolis-based Colon Cancer Coalition , volunteers her time with the online patient-led support community COLONTOWN , and blogs about her often adventurous experiences of living with chronic cancer at ColonCancerChick.com.

My particular case of colon cancer is pretty standard. Upon diagnosis, I had a standard colon resection without complications. I had standard metastasis to my lungs. And after six-plus years and more than 150 rounds of treatment, I am still on the standard therapies available for my disease. But I know the standard therapies remaining for me aren't curative, and are only intended to provide stability. If I want to have hope in doing anything more than buying time, I needed to consider clinical trials and seek out for opinions for the direction I could take my care.

While slowly warming up my search for a trial, results of a study were released that showed successful re-challenging of patients with a targeted therapy on which I had recently had a successfully long run. The evidence being that the tumor cells that mutated to become resistant to the therapy can mutate back to become receptive again after a prolonged break. Not only had my cancer cells been initially receptive to this therapy, I had just finished up the designated prolonged break as indicated by the study. My interest was piqued!
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