From: Keith Symcox <keith-symcox@utulsa.edu>
To: Dr. Doreen Kossove <doctordee@wandata.com>
Subject: Re: pubmed
Date: Sunday, May 20, 2001 4:03 AM

____________________________________




Marina Symcox
April 28, 2001
To:  The members of Life-Raft
E-mail:  STI-571-GIST@LISTSERV.ACOR.ORG

Seven months ago I could barely walk a few steps.  There were two occasions when
something happened so that I could not coordinate my right leg.  For days I
needed a walker to move from my bed to the bathroom.   I was dying from late
stage soft tissue sarcoma.  Then came news of Sti-571, followed by a hard
pilgrimage to Portland Oregon from a little town I like to call Bristow
America.  I failed the blood test requirements for the clinical trial the first
time, and Dr. Blanke gave me a second chance to pass the test two days later.  I
passed ever so slightly.  Dr. Blanke admitted me to the trial.  He told me
recently that he had been tenuous and worried about me starting the trial.  I
was in terrible condition.  But then some orange pills, containing a derivative
of 2-phenylaminopyrimidine, changed my life.

Tomorrow is the Inaugural Oklahoma City Marathon.  The event shall honor victims
of the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building, and the theme is Celebrate Life.
In April 1995, I worked at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, a
mile from the bombing site.  From my west facing 9th floor window, I could see
the gaping remains of the Federal Building, which had become a familiar grim
image on television.  I could see the boom of a crane covered with state flags
from all over the nation.  Occasionally, the crane would sweep across the dark
hull of the Federal Building, and I knew it was moving slabs of wreckage so
crews could search for victims.  To the southeast, I could see the office of the
Oklahoma Medical Examiner.  This structure was once such a nondescript feature
of my cityscape.  But in April 1995, it was surrounded with police barricades,
law enforcement vehicles and refrigeration trucks.  My co-workers knew stories
about people who had been near the bombing site.  A medical student who
frequented the Biochemistry Department told stories of helping in the coroner’s
office.  The morning newspapers circulating in my laboratory documented a
daunting parade of dead faces, but I didn’t know any of those people.  The
radio-station playing in my laboratory explained to listeners where to donate
supplies for the rescue crews, but I didn’t have any of those things.  I
witnessed the morbid drama, but the distance of a 9th floor view sanitized my
experience.

As for me, I was busy collecting data about mutants of cAMP-dependent
Protein Kinase.  I had my own postdoctoral funds, and things looked good.  I was
pregnant, and had a faculty job waiting for me at the University of Tulsa.  I
spent most of my day thinking about biochemistry and not about the images
through my 9th floor window.  In the spring of 1995, I hadn’t heard of another
protein kinase named c-kit, and so I had no clue that a catastrophe of c-kit
lurked in my gut.  I never thought about getting cancer while in my 30’s, and so
I had no idea that I was approaching a personal nightmare.

Five years have passed since I realized that I didn’t want to be a biochemist.
Three years have passed since I learned that I had a rare and deadly cancer.
Only seven months have passed since I learned about c-kit and that one of its
mutants was killing me.  During these same seven months, Sti-571 began
reclaiming me.  Today if I read an article about c-kit, I might reflect upon all
those hours collecting data about mutants of cAMP-dependent Protein Kinase.  It
is a period from another world.  I am no longer a student of biochemistry.  I am
a marathoner of adversity.  During the past months I have learned lessons about
human nature, family bonds, friendships, and about the better side of living in
a small town America.  I am exquisitely aware of the ephemeral nature of life.
Cancer has crushed me and enriched me at the same time.  Cancer has brought me
some special gifts.  One such gift is Kris Wyatt, who tried so hard to give me
solace and personal philosophy during my eight months in hospice.

Kris Wyatt runs marathons.  I have never learned how to enjoy running, but I
have learned about the Gift of Walking.  Lately I've been walking three miles
around the beautiful city lake just a few blocks from my house.  Sometimes I can
break into a little jog for a short distance.  I walk because Kris has marvelous
insight and understands symbolism.  She has asked me to walk a three-mile
segment of her Quad Relay team in the Oklahoma City Marathon.  Tomorrow morning
I will start at the Oklahoma City Memorial where so many met destiny through an
act of inconceivable malice.  I will continue near the building where I once
studied a protein kinase, and up the boulevard to my state’s Capitol.  My
destiny has become one of inconceivable good fortune as I walk with Sti-571.  I
will celebrate the Gift of Walking.  I will thank Dr. Blanke for sending a
Life-Raft to a very sick GIST patient.  I will salute the world’s bio-medical
researchers, and perhaps most especially to the chemists who designed the
molecule of Sti-571.  I cannot miss the irony of my situation.   I used to
collect data about a mutant protein kinase, and now I am someone else’s
successful data about another mutant protein kinase.  There seems to be some
kind of symmetry to all of that.  I will carry prayers for the families of the
bombing victims, though mostly I will embrace my orange pills and the army of
people who have rallied around my life.  A few of these people are close to me,
but most I have never met and have never heard of me.  These people have one
thing in common--they have brought me the Gift of Walking.



 