Commercials

If you watch any amount of TV, you’ve noticed more cancer drug commercials.

Or maybe it’s just me – since I work in pharmaceutical marketing and advertising so I’m more attune to these messages.  Fact is, there has been an increase in ads that explain and seek to inform the general public about more options available for treatment of various types of cancers out there.

I’m encouraged by this influx of choices and I’m enlightened by the desire to educate folks about the breakthroughs being made in immuno-therapies (science looking backward to find new ways to help the body use its own defenses – with a little help from modern medicine – to fight off diseases within).

The majority of these commercials do an effective job in communicating the hope that is out there for cancer patients.  But truth be told, these medications often are used to help offer people a few more quality weeks or months of time with their families (valuable time indeed), and very few represent an escape from an insidious intruder.

I feel optimistic for those that can benefit from the extra time.  And I feel elated for those that are able to slow the progression for an even longer period of time.  But selfishly, I feel lucky that my personal circumstance is nowhere near as desperate, and that the treatments available for me (from chemo to stem cell transplants to maintenance therapy) can stall my symptoms and elongate my duration until relapse, for an extended period of time – one whose backend has yet to be calculated.