An excursus on chemotherapy: I have limited time this morning to tell OUR story of beginning chemotherapy, but I offer these “non-scientist” thoughts: For over 50 years, the three ways to deal with cancer have been 1. Cut it (surgery) 2. Burn it (radiation) and 3. Poison it (chemotherapy). Not many know that chemotherapy was discovered by Nazi scientists. They were looking for more effective poisons and poison gasses for “The Final Solution.” By accident, they discovered that some of the poisons with which they were experimenting also killed cancer cells. Both radiation treatment for cancer and chemotherapy were “peaceful” uses of former weapons of war used in World War II.The limits of ALL three forms of treatment are related to the nature of cancer itself. A surgeon may come out of an operation and say “We got it all.” He/she is not lying. He/she means “I got all I could see.” Any cancer cells that were “hiding” from the best available imaging can begin growing and reproducing again.Likewise, the radiation oncologist says “We treated all the sites.” He/she means “The imaging shows no more cancer.” Again, cancer cells “hide” and may begin reproducing.Chemotherapy kills cancer cells. It may kill MOST of them. A FEW may have the capacity to resist the poison. Those may begin to reproduce and THEY are resistant to the medicine that worked before.Doctors know this. They ALSO know that our confidence that the treatments we are taking can be as critical to our recovery as the medicines and treatments themselves. They will often come across as COMPLETELY confident. They aren’t “lying.” They are doing their part to help us recover. SOMETIMES, surgery is completely successful. SOMETIMES radiation is. SOMETIMES chemotherapy is. A patient who lives five years after diagnosis is considered “cured.” The thing is, the human body is a mystery only partially understood even after centuries of study.