Brunch

The annual Brotherhood of the Balloon brunch yesterday, presided over by Bob Marckini, featured centerpieces consisting of a balloon—far more flamboyant than the ones we encounter at each treatment—and flowers in pots like this one made from a bollus, a device, peculiar to each patient, that shapes the proton beam.

Some things heard at the brunch:

Bob Rimer, a BOB member, had a PSA of 61 and a Gleason score of 10. His doctor gave him 18 months to live. Now, 11 years after proton treatment, he's thriving.

Judge Bill Osland, another BOB member, is a 12-year alumnus and maintains a PSA of 0.01.

Dr. Richard Hart, President and CEO of Loma Linda, told us 85 countries are represented on the campus which comprises 5 hospitals and 7 schools (Medicine, Nursing, Public Health, Allied Health, Pharmacy, Science and Technology, and Religion). Following Baby Fae who received a baboon heart in the '80s, the hospital has performed 500 infant-to-infant heart transplants. 90,000 physicians have graduated from the university in its 100 years of operation.

Dr. Jerry Slater, head of Radiology and the son of James Slater who pioneered proton treatment, surveyed research and program development underway in the areas of medical radiation engineering and patient treatment. Programs are in progress to bring down the number of treatments required to treat prostate cancer, to cure early breast cancer with protons, and to apply proton treatment to pancreatic cancer.

Bob Marckini reviewed the state of the BOB. The organization pursues its tripartite mission to support each other, to promote proton treatment of prostate cancer, and to give back to Loma Linda. BOB members now number 4,257 with 700 joining in the past year. Members live in all 50 states and 28 foreign countries. To date, BOB members have donated $5.2 million to Loma Linda. In the past year, BOB conducted a survey of alumni. 40%—an unheard of number—responded to the voluntary questionnaire. Of these respondents, 94% asserted that their quality of life is as good as or better than before treatment. 95% said that their cancers continue to be in remission; of the remaining 5% most either did not know or said it was as yet too early to tell.

230,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer each year. Of that number, only one half of one percent find proton treatment at one of the half-dozen facilities in the country.

I am amongst the tiny number of the blest.

Treatment count: 30 down, 15 to go. Two-thirds of the way through.