Recovery on The Point
Dear Friends,
It has been too long. I hope this finds those of you whom I haven’t seen since returning from Korea well and prospering. I welcome your news.
I apologize for not having written sooner. When I returned to Ulaanbaatar in early September, I wasn’t very strong, and the problems waiting for me were more than I expected. It took some time to get my strength and stamina back. Suffice it to say, I am getting stronger day by day.
When I left Korea, the two Dr. Kims who had treated me told me to expect two or three months to recover from the rigors of the summer. Indeed, “the acute therapy” had knocked the stuffing out of me. As Mike Tyson said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
Back in Mongolia, I began preparing for the next round. And now here I am, in my old house trailer by the sea in Point Roberts, that pen-enclave mistake of the 1846 Oregon Treaty. The only dignitary of note to ever visit was the President of Iceland, Her Excellency Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, on October 22, 1988. “The Point,” as locals call it, belongs to the United States but is effectively a suburb of Vancouver, Canada. Most people have never heard of it, even in Vancouver.
You need a passport every time you move back and forth between Tsawwassen, the affluent Canadian suburb to the north, and The Point’s ten square kilometers, heavily wooded and abundant with wildlife, including an owl who hoots near my window most nights.
It has rarely stopped raining since I arrived here three weeks ago, but now that I have a lot more raincoats, sweaters, and blankets than I ever needed in Ulaanbaatar, I am well prepared for the next round. Last Saturday the bell rang: I had a PET/CT scan at the British Columbia Cancer Centre in Vancouver. On Monday, I then met Dr. Jiang Wei Ning, the oncologist assigned by the British Columbia Cancer Authority to evaluate my situation. He reviewed the scan results with me and then, with considerable vigor, probed and prodded my nose, mouth, throat, and both sides of my neck. Verdict: the three tumors are gone. No indication of cancer anywhere in my body.
This is great news. In September, after treatment ended, a remnant of at least one of the three tumors—the one under my tongue and on my tonsil—was still present. The doctors told me so. I could feel it myself. Over the past three months it has disappeared—an indicator that the intensive immunotherapy-centered treatment Dr. Kim Hye Ryun designed for me has a life, or at least an inertia, of its own. The question now is how to organize the one year of non-intensive follow-on immunotherapy that Dr. Kim recommends to ensure the cancer doesn’t return.
I am in Canada, and not Korea, because, having gotten the disease under control, I have time to organize provincial health insurance coverage in British Columbia. I have started that process and now know more than I did: the British Columbia Cancer Authority will pay for an oncologist in private practice here to administer pembrolizumab, the immunotherapy drug that has gotten me this far. They will not pay for the drug itself.
I am starting the process of applying to Merck, the drug company that makes pembrolizumab, for relief from full price for further infusions—because I (in fact, you) have already purchased three courses of the drug to good effect, and because Dr. Kim, an expert in the field of immunotherapy, has prescribed it but the provincial health insurance scheme won’t pay for it. This process will take some time, which I am extremely grateful to know that I now have.
Of course, all of this is thanks to friends, especially to all of you who got me through my Seoul summer. I won’t forget. As this Canadian sojourn continues, you will hear from me, and I would welcome your news. I expect to be hunkered down here on The Point enjoying its bone-penetrating humidity, never-ending rain, and frontier kindnesses for several weeks. (About kindnesses: a fellow Point Person I had just met rummaged in his storage and found for me two beautiful wool blankets and a quilt, all brand new, various pots and pans, and a broom—and threw in two filets of salmon caught just offshore.)
I should be back in Ulaanbaatar sometime in January. In the meantime, anyone nearby who wants (or dares) to visit Point Roberts, please let me know. We have one restaurant (open for dinner), one café (open for breakfast and lunch), and a community center that serves Seniors Lunch twice a week for six dollars. Welcome!
Thank you all,
Mike