Baltimore fishing expedition

Speaking of fish, Max went to the vet this morning to get his teeth cleaned. Hopefully all will go well. His last cleaning was a couple of years ago as the cleaning has to be done under anesthetic. His mouth smelled like he had just munched down on a rotten herring sandwich. I think you get the idea! I will pick him up later today.

This afternoon Diana and I are meeting with a Doctor at Johns Hopkins who specializes in really advanced genetic testing for cancer. I will , of course, update the blog later today.

Lets not forget lunch with Larry.

Here is the abbreviated update. Lunch was great, Max is fine and the Hopkins Doctor was very interesting.

Now here is the expanded version about Hopkins. Our meeting with Dr. Sidransky was very interesting. Not only is he an oncologist, but he is also CEO of a bio genetic company. He wants to implant my cancerous cells into mice, propagate them in order to tailor make a chemotherapy that could possibly eradicate my disease. It’s all very high tech and involves molecular and bio genetic engineering. Apparently, this will be the standard treatment 5-10 years down the road. Unfortunately, at this point in time, it is a very, very expensive procedure (not covered by insurance). I guess this is where the ethicists would have a dilemma. What price can you put on life and whose life is more precious? The meeting gave me a lot to ponder. Of course, my wife is ready for me to jump on this bandwagon. But in my usual pilot meticulous and methodical way, I need to investigate further.

Before the appointment I played a trick on Diana. I called her to tell her what time the appointment was and then proceeded to tell her that, strangely enough, we had to bring a dozen lab mice with us to the appointment. What made it even more plausible was I gave her a bogus address where we could get the mice. When I finally confessed that it was a joke she had a good laugh. At our meeting with Dr. Sidransky she offered to supply the mice if we could get a break on the price. All in all, pretty darn funny.

Carpe Diem.