You guys are so busy today! Busy, busy!
Good to see you.
Happy Monday! Happy Monday!
Good morning!
That's the greatest thing about walking in the door here,
you get met with such incredible love.
When I walk through the door at Rush,
I know that I am completely supported
in the care that I receive.
She's a survivor of breast cancer.
And so we connected, obviously,
because she understood what I was going through
and there's an incredible empathy.
I was enjoying life every day going to spin class,
and drinking green juice,
and loving the freedom of retirement.
I just noticed that I started to get more and more tired.
I went to my doctor and I said, "Something is wrong."
They scheduled some CT scans and things but for months out,
it was non-urgent.
I found a lovely woman
out in Oak Park,
and she looked at me and she said,
"Can you do a CT scan this week?
And can you do a colonoscopy this week?"
And I said, "Yes, I can."
And she found it.
"You have stage four terminal cancer."
I so looked forward
to all of the things that my wife and I were going to do.
I so looked forward to
discovering who I was,
who I was going to be.
We reached out to the top 10 cancer centers in America
and asked the question,
"What do we do? And what can we do?"
And the answer was very consistent.
It was like, "Not all that much."
That phone call to Rush changed everything.
Close your eyes, relax, meditate.
Just take some deep breaths and let it out.
What I was welcomed with or introduced to was,
"We have ideas."
Awesome.
A primary colon tumor that we'd been told
by multiple other hospitals was inoperable,
they were going to go get it out.
Once that colon tumor was out,
here is the plan.
And here is how we're going to move forward.
Hello, Dr. Leslie! Hello!
"Your liver, it's in exceptionally bad shape,
but innovative new surgical procedures
and technologies and the like
that we are at the cutting edge of helping to develop.
If you are up for it, we will do it."
I was talked to as a human being
who was just diagnosed with a terminal disease
at 46 years old.
And how did I want to handle this
in the ways that they had to offer?
She had tumor involvement
on both the right and left side of the liver.
And we applied this therapy
that we're innovating here at Rush
where we starve the right side of blood flow.
And then within a short time interval, three to four weeks,
go back and remove that right side of the liver
so that the left side's adequate in size
to maintain or function.
I talk to friends or colleagues at work and I say,
"Yeah, they resected, you know, 80% of her liver.
And it grew back."
And then like that's...
It's amazing. I still find that amazing.
It got fancy.
Going through this for that first nine months,
everything was successful.
And I had a moment where I had no cancer in my body.
I think it only lasted maybe a month.
Then I had a CT scan
and they found it in my lungs.
To have that information
during the time of the incredible uncertainty
of what was happening in this world was terrifying.
Yet Rush kept going.
Rush managed COVID so successfully
that there was never an interruption in my treatment
or my options.
I have something planned for after every chemo
to reward myself.
That's how I'm going to get through.
Chronically, cancer patients have problems
with their platelets cratering.
And there's no solution for that.
If I walk in and they test my blood
and my platelets have cratered,
they say, "No treatment today, go home."
The low platelet numbers were becoming a challenge
for her to be able to receive treatment.
So when I saw her,
she was getting a reduced dose of the treatment
and her disease was progressing.
So it was becoming very challenging,
both for the patient and for the providers
who really wanted to help her but didn't know what to do.
And Dr. Jain, instead of just clocking into her job
and taking me as a patient,
running blood work and such,
she took it upon herself.
She really wanted to find a solution for this.
She found a drug that is not used in oncology.
And she read the research on it and said,
"I think this could help with cancer patients' platelets.
You should be using this drug in oncology."
This is more like an off-label use.
It is not approved to be used in this case.
So, I knew that when we first applied for the medication
it is going to be denied.
She fought the insurance company,
she fought the drug company
to get them to understand what this possibly could do.
You fast forward nine months later, and as you can see,
she was successful because I am in treatment,
which would not have happened.
The innovation and the desire to be innovative,
that's the difference to me at Rush.
That is why I have stayed there for over three years,
and I have not gone to try somebody else.
I want to support Rush's continued innovation
in their science
because it saved my life.
We decided to set up a research fund at Rush.
This is the place where so much is happening
that's unavailable anywhere else in the city.
Rush is serving so many communities in Chicago
who don't have access to sufficient health care.
And so when I think about a gift,
I know it's going to go into that care,
it's going to go into that access,
it's going to go into that research.
The things that really move the needle,
that's where those funds are going to go.
I would like to thank Rush donors
for their continued support
in letting us provide this excellent care for our patients,
and to continue to advance the field of medicine.
Thank you, guys! My hero!
Where they have given me the hope
is the approach to my disease as a chronic disease.
"We're actually going to help you
live and thrive with cancer."
It doesn't mean that I believe that they're going to cure me
and solve all of my problems.
But they are going to give me today,
and they're going to give me tomorrow.