MY DAY WITH TRIP
Five hours spent with a ten-year survivor is nothing short of inspiring.
Last Friday I spent the day interviewing and filming a fellow prostate cancer patient, Trip Casscells, in Washington, D.C. I have to say, Trip is no ordinary man. He is perhaps also the only cancer patient to ever join the military reserves.
At age 49, Trip experienced lower back pain that became progressively worse. Then, one night, he felt a lump in his abdominal area. Following an appointment with a prostate cancer specialist, he was diagnosed with aggressive metastatic disease. During the past ten years, Trip has undergone numerous treatments for his disease. He will tell anyone casually, “I shouldn’t be here today, but I am…”
I have had the honor to get to know Trip through my work during the past two years. In fact, he was one of the two gentlemen I referred to in my September 29 blog entry, Embrace of the Brotherhood. In that entry, I wrote of the visible toll Trip’s disease and his treatments have extracted from him. Since our time in September, his disease came back with a vengeance and Trip spent the last several weeks in treatment once again. As we filmed his comments, he revealed that during this recent round of hospitalization, hospice was mentioned as an option. I was taken aback not only by this piece of news, but by the nonchalant manner in which Trip delivered the statement. However, Trip’s physician of the past ten years, a brilliant physician-scientist and one of the world’s leading prostate cancer researchers–Dr. Christopher Logothetis–thought differently. He immediately initiated a course of treatment that included a combination of therapies. As a result, I am pleased to say that Trip is now in his fifth remission.
To read the rest of Trips story, go to: http://mynewyorkminute.org/?p=2153
Bless all of you who are fighting for remissions.