Dendritic Cell Vaccine

It became apparent that if necessary, I could have the Dendritic Cell Vaccine as well as the Ipi simultaneously. This made the decision making easy. I consulted Dr Ramos, who, while unconvinced about the DCV, empathised with my situation and agreed to go ahead with harvesting the tumours for the vaccine. He is an old acquaintance through my friend Jenny and professor of surgery and master of keyhole surgery of the liver. I know that none of this is coincidental.

I also heard from the Research Genetic Cancer Centre that my cancer cells are responsive to Ipi. This is exceedingly good news.

So, we went ahead with the surgery on Monday. I'm back home now, with four holes and several stitches in my fat tummy and feeling as if I did a million sit ups yesterday. There will have to be a couple of days of teetering around. I am notorious at underestimating the effects of surgery and had planned to teach this morning!

The surgery was scary and successful. Dr Ramos, using his immeasurable skill, managed to extract 2 pea sized tumours from my liver. He had a look around and said the rest of the liver looked normal and definitely not 'riddled '.

They took 20 tubes of blood too and Tim and Nicola did the dash to get the material to Pretoria within the 4 hour margin, while it was viable for making the vaccine. What drama! They almost needed a poice escort. I was so relieved they could go together.

Unfortunately the blood was put into the wrong tubes, so yesterday, they had to take another 20 from 3 sites and Tim did the drive to Pretoria again.

The vaccine is all brewed up now and incubating and should be ready to be reinjected by the end of next week. I am so lucky to be able to participate in this cutting edge technology. It makes such sense to me. The tumour cells have been sectioned and frozen at -70C and fresh blood will be mixed with them to make a new vaccine every month.

There is much to celebrate as it is almost a year since I was given a 10% chance of surviving 6 months. So , a bit like Benjamin Button, I'm getting younger rather than older! A very old a dear friend of the family, who practised as a doctor for 60 years told me never to underestimate the power of prayer. There can't be another explanation.