彭蒙惠英语：Beating Cancer: A Quest for Miracles（在线收听）

Beating Cancer: A Quest for Miracles

By Fawn Vrazo / © 2005, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Knight Ridder

Newspapers. Distributed by Tribune Media Services.

New hope that targeted therapies will be the ultimate weapon for winning the war on cancer

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“I want off,” David Wolovitz told his cancer doctor. “I want off now.”

It was fall 2000, and Wolovitz felt a bit stunned himself as the fateful words tumbled out of his mouth. He was telling his oncologist to end the treatments that were his only hope for beating a deadly blood cancer. Wolovitz had been diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) the previous March. CML is caused by a defective gene that allows the bloodstream to become clogged with cancerous, immature white blood cells. In 2000, the only treatment options for CML were injections with interferon or a bone marrow transplant. Without treatment, CML victims die within three to five years, usually from fatal infections or bleeding.

No good options

Wolovitz was deciding his own death sentence. But he had his reasons. Interferon works well with many CML patients, but for Wolovitz, the medicine was more terrible than the disease. In its earliest stages, his CML had given him only the vaguest of symptoms. He felt fatigued and couldn’t eat more than a few bites of food. But the interferon was something else. The treatments made him so nauseated all he could do was lie on his couch. One night, he vomited violently and spent hours lying on the bathroom floor of his home.

But the real kicker was his blood tests, which showed that the interferon was not working. Even if Wolovitz found a matching bone-marrow donor, he knew that a marrow transplant would make him feel sicker, or even kill him. He ruled that option out, too. Mentally, he prepared to die. He knew it would take a miracle to save his life. But miracles do happen.