Hi All,

I've only posted here a few times. Not sure where I left off here, but basically my mom had been given a death sentence by her doctors. She had a 2nd recurrence of her SCC and it was now in her bloodstream. This was after 6 weeks of radiation w/ 3 chemo treatments in that period. Her doctors had basically given up.

Well my family decided that this was just not acceptable and we wanted to continue the fight. We moved her treatment to the Cancer Center of America in Philadelphia and they began a treatment of Erbitux and Taxol. After 3 months of treatments, we had a PET scan yesterday and heard the word "Remission" for the first time in a year! Her doctor was amazed. They showed us her PET scan and it was like night and day...no spots anywhere!

I wasn't sure if this was more fitting in the Survivor section or the Recurrence section. I think since we are in disbelief still, I'm not quite ready to label it a survival story, but it's certainly amazing news! We've opted to continue with the Taxol and Erbitux treatments for another month or two since she has few side effects and then re-evaluate at that time just to make sure we've beaten the SCC into submission.

I hope this story helps anyone who feels like their situation is helpless. I had completely given up hope and I even moved home to spend more time with my Mom because I didn't know how much time she had left. I think one thing that really helped was this hospital concentrated on her nutrition and boosting her immune system, which I feel was overlooked before. I can't stress enough how important getting that under control has been in our fight with cancer (in my non-medical opinion).

Well I've rambled on a bit but please, do not give up your fight just because of recurrences. Happy Holidays to everyone and good luck with your respective fights.