From this moment on, the rhythms of our weeks will be punctuated by the pace of a clinical trial of an experimental cancer drug. We join forces with a doctor who is staking his whole life on believing that everything in the cancer world is about to be transformed, and that this drug is only the beginning. After that, the days of our lives together are guided by Dr. Keith Flaherty—a doctor we have just met—and girded by sorafenib, a drug whose name neither Terence nor I can spell, and bevacizumab, a drug whose name neither of us can pronounce. Our calendar is linked with the calendar of the trial and our emotional ease rises and falls with the timing of the monthly scans that accompany the treatment. Yet in many ways, nothing changes at all. Today, as I review the records and the research, the stark reality of even the most optimistic outcome leaps out at me. Even the best chances were slim, I can see in retrospect. Yet back then, hard as I looked, I saw none of that. Terence and I believe in these drugs with a belief that is beyond belief.
