At the two-year anniversary of my November 2022 craniotomy (my two-year cranioversary), I’m thrilled to say I can now – with moderate confidence – explain how my brain cancer appeared.  I’m fascinated also that the answer starts with a story of biochemistry and quantum physics, nicely aligned with my undergraduate B. Sc. in Biochemistry with a Physics minor.  My answer may come with bias, but the science checks out.  In today’s post, I include references to appropriate sources but will refer to generally agreed-upon knowledge without reference.  The fast version is that while one of my brain cells was dividing quite normally, a small quantum fluctuation in one proton (hydrogen atom) in one DNA nucleotide caused one copy of the cell to include a single point mutation that changed everything .  This might leave one asking: “what are the chances of that???”, to which I’ll say the chance is non-zero, it’s calculable, but it’s vanishingly small.  If this ...

  'Watch and Wait', and what's behind the language? First, I should acknowledge that this post is my second post today.  It's partly connected to and inspired by my earlier post about " MRIs and a connection to tackling some of life’s obstacles ", and evidence that I'm perhaps feeling a little 'chatty' today. For context, when talking to other cancer patients and in particular those in Canada and through Brain Tumour support group connections, I understand that we often use the words "watch and wait" to describe the period where we are not actively treating a tumour or cancer with surgery, radiation, or medications like chemotherapies, but where we are taking periodic scans to monitor progression, such that we wait to trigger active treatment at the right time for optimal balance of risk and benefits of the therapy. I'm in that state right now, and have often described it as "Scan and Plan", though I do hear variations lik...

In this blog post, I’ll weave one of my typical stories that will begin with my enthusiasm and excitement for MRIs, again with a series of numbered citations for those interested in further reading.  The timing of this post is connected to me recently having my 13 th MRI, on Friday September 13, 2024, where my enthusiasm overflowed for a few reasons.  In this post I will explain my excitement about MRIs, link back to a challenging MRI experience, then will use my own approach to handling that challenge and subsequent ones to build on the ways we can all approach life’s obstacles and challenges and include some references along the way.  In talking about challenges, I might touch on topics that make you consider the obstacles or challenges in your own life, so please, take care while reading.  If it sounds interesting though, please read on! My first MRI took place on October 13 th 2022, nine months after my initial ...

I'm going to try something new with this post in making it feel more informal.  If you're reading this ready for ' another of Stu's lectures ', you can probably put down your pen(s) and paper / notepad, as I hope this ends up feeling more like we're just chatting over coffee. Today, I'm writing with updates on the cool things I've been able to spend my time on, and to reflect on how we can each get significant personal returns on the investments we make in helping others.  Already, that last sentence sounds a little overly inflated to me, so I'll do my best to keep things balanced.  Even before my current brain cancer experience, I've been a firm believer in the benefits of giving back and helping others. After my 2022 diagnosis  and surgery , I started searching for resources and community connections where I could learn more about my new experiences and find others with similar stories.  I started more generally by looking for "Brain Tumou...

Before you read this post: I’m about to weave a long story that might take 20 – 30 minutes to read.  I start with recent good news before walking us back to 1953 and some phenomenal science that followed to allow this good news.  Next, I add a ‘crash course’ that covers the steps from drug discovery and development through to clinical trials, regulatory submission and approval to commercial marketing.  I’ll gloss over some things to simplify, but I do cover a lot, so read on at your own discretion. Some good news On June 12, 2024, I joined a group of patients in getting early access to a new medication not yet approved anywhere but submitted to multiple health agencies for anticipated regulatory decision in August.  It might sound familiar because I wrote about the February 20, 2024 regulatory submission in an earlier post .  After pre-clinical work and results from Phase I and II trials, efficacy results from the Phase III ‘Indigo’ Clinical Trial showed tha...