Sally

And so I don't know how I would have gotten that information otherwise. Yeah, I really don't. Like I said, I see my oncologist once a year, and it's a pretty quick appointment, and I don't- I remember learning about a study. There's a new vaccine for women, you can be as far out as you, whatever. There's no limitations. And there's a new vaccine they're trialing here and in other sites to prevent recurrence, and I only found out about that because I worked, you know, at the Cancer Center for the past year. And I was like, “Whoa, I could be in this study. Why don't I know about this study?” I mean, there's just like this huge disconnect, and I don't know how patients are supposed to get this information. So I mentioned it. I waited until my next oncology appointment, and I mentioned it to her. But because, and she knew about it, but if I hadn't brought it up, you know, she—I think they're just too busy. And some of them are really into research. Some aren't. Some are, I don't know. But it just feels like you really have to look out for yourself unfortunately, because I- I think I have a great oncologist, but you know, you’ve—you kind of, through time, you realize, you really need to be on top of things if you want to know about the latest. And I felt, you know, I get certain emails. I'm part of different groups. But—and so I feel like I'm kind of on top of all this. But then, you know, like, “Well, no, I never heard about that. I didn't know about these new mutations. I didn't know about the vaccine recurrence.” You know, it's just like so much that's out there that you can't, I don't know how patients are supposed to get this information.

I couldn't eat for three days, but then I was fine until my next round, and I did decide to go with a clinical trial. Which, you know, that was kind of interesting, too, because I really thought I would be much more involved in the decision making, but I- I really couldn't. I- I just couldn't deal with it. And so luckily, my husband, I said, “Research this clinical trial. Tell me what you think.” Because I cannot make a decision. And that's really unlike me. I was shocked that that's how I was reacting. And, so he looked it all up.

And I just look back and think of that as an interesting piece, because I just, I couldn't, I couldn’t, I now get why people just can't make any decisions. They can't function. And you feel like, “Wow,” you know, “Don't you want to participate in your care?” and it's like well, you're not in any emotional state to do it. At least I wasn't.

So of course, we go in, and they pulled, you know, the third option, which is, we said, “OK, now we're backing out,” and they were like, “wait a minute.” I said, “We can back out at any time.” But then my oncologist came in, and she said that she thought it was a really good option for me, and I- I trusted her. By that point, we'd had, had enough conversations, and I just said, “What can I do, but trust you?” You know, so we did it, because she said, “You take two drugs at once. You hit it really hard right away. It's really intense. But you're done in four rounds.” And so I did it.