March 18, 2024 – When Ken Aaron, 51, woke up from his first-ever colonoscopy last February to his doctor mouthing the words “we found a tumor,” there was no one more surprised than he was. The married father of two had some very mild GI discomfort before he booked the scan, but, besides that, there was nothing significantly amiss with the writer, an avid hiker and skier who lives in the Adirondacks.
“I treated my diagnosis like I was doing research for a story I was writing, but the story was myself,” he said. “I started thinking: What sources do I need to talk to, what facts could I establish about my disease, and what decisions do I need to make immediately.”cancer diagnosed in men and women in the U.S., according to the American Cancer Society.
“I knew no one – I couldn’t drop any names – I just called Sloan Kettering’s 800 number,” he said, adding that right away, he was scheduled for an appointment at one of their New Jersey locations. “Their only questions: Do you have a diagnosis and do you have insurance. I had the right answer to both.”The next morning, Aaron and his wife drove the 5 hours to Memorial Sloan Kettering on what happened to be one of the snowiest days that winter.
Because Aaron now had two cancers, he no longer qualified for the clinical trial, but that didn’t stop his team from starting him on pembrolizumab instead of dostarlimab , the drug being used in the trial. “This isn’t like chemo,” he said. “I can drive to the cancer center and back and even go skiing or hiking the next day.”After the fifth treatment, Aaron had another PET scan and another colonoscopy. It showed that he was making progress, but it was slower compared to other patients in the clinical trial.
“There was no cancer detected, and there was only scar tissue where the tumor was,” he said. “It was a miracle – I still can’t believe I’m saying this out loud.”
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