The Assertive Cancer Patient

Moving Day

Today is moving day. I've been packing up my stuff at the rehab place (amazing how many more things I have than when I came here from the hospital in early December), and Linda is coming at 2 to drive me from Point A to Point B.

One thing I've been thinking about: It would have been so much tougher to go straight from my much-loved house to assisted living. The seven-week stopover here will make assisted living look good by comparison, or so I think.

Some pluses:

Privacy. No roommate.

A door that locks. (Also a privacy issue, of course.)

Better food. 

My studio is furnished with some of my own things from home--my own bed and pillows and quilt (aah). 

Fred Lind (Point B) is in a better part of town, Seattle's Capitol Hill, which will be important as I gradually expand my mental map of the neighborhood and take walks--first with friends and Younger Son, later on my own, I hope. 

Younger Son will be much closer (at least until he graduates in June). He has promised to come over on Sunday afternoon and hang out with me. I hope we can walk to Trader Joe's (I think it's only about four blocks) and hang in my new place and talk--privately--and then he can have dinner with me in the dining room. It's $10 to have a guest for lunch or dinner.

The New Kid on the Block

I am somewhat dreading meals at Fred Lind ... that "new kid at the table" feeling, but I've been told that one of the staff members will introduce me to my table mates. That will be at dinner tonight. 

I plan to pump them for information about the place, and I need to make a few friends. I do not want to talk about my cancer or other medical issues at dinner, or at all, really. Maybe later.  

 

@ Jeanne Sather 2012. 

All Dark to the North ... Two Nights in a Row

For those of you who don't have a mental image of my neighborhood (I know, I keep meaning to draw a map for you all), Sage's house is north of mine. Both houses are on the east side of the street. (Except our street is an avenue.)

I may have my verb tenses wrong, however. Maybe I should have said, "Sage's house WAS north of mine," because it is 1:30 a.m. and no one appears to be home. The house is completely black.

Not one porch light. Not one nightlight. Those little lights that line the front steps? They're gone too.

Black. Black. Black. 

It was the same way last night. It was so dark that the house appeared to have fallen into a black hole.

There had been three or four bright-grass-green trucks out front in the afternoon, Friday afternoon, but somehow they didn't look like moving vans.

Maybe they were. Anyway, I have a scrap of paper somewhere with the name of the green-truck company written on it, so I will check it tomorrow once I wake up.

Waking up has become quite a production around here since I got home from the hospital last time. The key word is: PAIN. 

I wake up in pain. I wake up in so much pain that I cannot move. Everything hurts. Neck. T-spine. L-spine. And knees. My knees hurt so badly that I can't even move them.

If they are folded up when I wake up--well, they stay that way. If they are straight when I wake up, they stay straight.

You get the picture. I need to get my doctors to take this whole morning-pain issue more seriously, because the only way I can get out of bed in the morning without howling in pain for 15 minutes or so is to have Younger Son slip me a pain pill about an hour before want to move.

We have been having sleepovers recently, but there is no way that either of us wants this to become a permanent thing. The Boy likes his privacy. His messy, cluttered, wet towels on the floor privacy.

I like his privacy that way too--as long as it is at his house.

More after the sun rises ...

 

@ Jeanne Sather @ 2011.  

 

 

Yes, I Am Eating Yoghurt

Since I returned home from the hospital on Wednesday, I have been eating Mountain High's full-fat vanilla yoghurt. I'm eating a bowl as I write this.

I will need to ask Younger Son to buy more at the store when he gets here this afternoon. I've also told him the yoghurt in the fridge is off limits unless he replaces it before he eats it. YS loves yoghurt too. 

Thank you to those of you who wondered if I was eating yoghurt after a bout of C-diff, but who trusted me enough to know that I would know this. You trusted me to take care of myself and to ask for help if I needed it.

That is priceless.

Now, did anyone at NW Hospital (owned by the University of Washington Medical Center, as I have mentioned before) mention that eating yoghurt would be a good idea?

Nope.

Doctor? Nurse? Pharmacist? Cleaning Lady? 

Again, nope. No mention.

The Cleaning Lady

Now, they call her "housekeeping" on the 4th floor, but I prefer to call her The Cleaning Lady because that is what she is. She is a small woman of a certain age, as Agatha Christie used to say. She is from SE Asia, doesn't speak English very well, but always nods and smiles at me when I greet her and when I thank her for cleaning my room.

I also apologized to her the day after she opened the door to my room to find Connie on the other side. She's small and not comfortable with dogs. He's large and wanted to wash her face. 

Now, should she have waited after knocking for me to get a hand on my dog's leash? Well, yes. 

But she's the one who was startled, by my dog, and I put people ahead of dogs, most of the time anyway, even my darling Connie. 

You may also be wondering: How did I catch C. diff.? At least three possible answers:

1) I was infected when I was hospitalized in late September and early October for the spine surgery on September 21.

2) I was infected somewhere at the NW Hospital campus during my many visits there, including visits to Dr. Lee's office. 

3) The last time I had C. diff., it was inadequately treated and never completely went away. It waited for this opportunity to come roaring back. 

See: Typhoid Mary vs. Northwest Hospital 

 

@ Jeanne Sather 2011. 

 

Hakusei Is Coming Home

I just e-mailed Elaine. She's the woman who gave our cat a home after Older Son refused to keep the litter box and surrounding area to a level of cleanliness that made it safe for me to have a cat.

This battle had raged for years, and I always lost because I love the cat and couldn't bring myself to give him away. Reality check from therapist, enough said.

When Elaine took Hakusei (Hawkee is his other name), she always said I could have him back whenever I was able to, that we could consider it a long-term foster. But I thought I was going to be dying soon and I also thought I'd be losing my house to foreclosure, and where would I find a place to live with a dog, a cat, and lousy credit? Not to mention no money for first, last, and a deposit? That money all went on plane tickets to S. California. 

However, since that time, Older Son has moved out (at my request); my cancer is in remission, which means my blood cell counts are pretty normal; and I'm not too worried about Citi foreclosing on my house, at least immediately. I hear it is taking them a year to get around to foreclosing on some people. 

All I need is two volunteers to keep the litter box and surrounding area to a level of cleanliness dictated by a member of my medical team (a lot of bleach is involved), and the cat can come home!

Younger Son has already volunteered, and I am going to e-mail The Amazing Martha next. She came to see me in the hospital, and she has a cat herself. I think she will be happy to volunteer. 

Hakusei may be home as soon as tomorrow!

Younger Son will be here in the afternoon to do some chores for me, as he does most Sunday afternoons, and he will mop the cat area and go out for a new litter box, food, and etc. I may even go with him, on foot. 

Photo: @ Elaine Thompson 2011.

@ Jeanne Sather 2011. 

 

HOME!

The good news is that I was discharged today and got to come home. So it's Connie and me (and Younger Son) against the world.

I had a major meltdown yesterday at the hospital over what I saw as issues of trust between my doctors and me, and that pretty much wore me out when I was already exhausted. (How is that possible, you ask? I can't explain, but it is. Those of you who have had a lot of chemo or radiation will understand.)

YS missed classes to come by the house with Andrea and get some things I needed, and then he stayed with me when she had to leave.

Andrea brought Connie back to the next-door neighbors who have watched him since Saturday morning, when they released him from 20 hours of imprisonment.

YS stayed because I asked him to, although he understood why I needed him there. He spent the night, again because I was in bad shape, although he would much rather have been at home in his own apartment.

This is a kid who only likes to shower in his own bathroom with his own shampoo and so on, everything in its place. I understand that, although I am a bit more adaptable and can pack my toiletries and take them with me.

Usually I pack a bag when I think I am heading for the hospital, but I didn't get the chance this time. Twenty-four hours without my own electric toothbrush and my own toothpaste! Torture.

Younger Son and I had some long conversations, with lots of black humor, and then one of those moments when you realize that your kid really IS grown up (and has skills): YS edited and proofread an e-mail that I sent to a lawyer.

And he improved it!

I couldn't believe Robin was giving me back the lessons I gave him when I homeschooled him 10 years ago.  It was a fantastic moment. 

@ Jeanne Sather 2011. 

"The Remission Song" DVDs Are Here!

It was so exciting when the DVDs arrived, all 100 of them. 

Mark, the guy who handled the duplication, dropped them off at my house on Tuesday, and then a group of friends and family, including Younger Son's father, Younger Son, and Sage, my favorite 6-year-old, put the DVDs into the clamshell cases in about 20 minutes.

They used an assembly-line system, and had fun doing it. 

I've already sold 10 or 12 copies, plus I'm giving DVDs to everyone who took part in the production, all our donors, and the five people the film is dedicated to.

Hint: Dr. Lee is one. I insisted he watch it during our appointment today, even though we had important medical issues to discuss. He loved it, and was touched by the dedication. 

I only have about 40 copies left for sale, so act quickly if you want one. Go to: Buy the DVD

I may do a second edition, it seems like we could use another 100 to 200. 

The wait had been pretty excruciating--our editor, Bill Murray, missed his deadline by 22 days, more than three weeks.

Not only was everyone who was in the production asking me when the DVDs would arrive, but I needed them by August 22 so that I could use them as part of my campaign to pressure the FDA to approve the changes to the T-DM1 clinical trial.

The FDA's deadline to respond to Genentech's application was August 31, giving me a window of nine days to make use of them for lobbying purposes.

Well, he missed it, and now he's telling me he has a greater claim to the copyright on this film than I do. More about that in a day or two.

There is no way that Bill is going to keep me from claiming MY intellectual property or from having more DVDs duplicated--once I've cleaned up all the errors he introduced into the film in the editing and because he didn't consult with me on things. 

I don't need one more battle right now, but if I have to fight it, I will.

This film is important to me, and its message is important to all the women with HER2neu-positive breast cancer who might be helped by T-DM1. 

Argh.

See also:

Lyrics to 'The Remission Song'

'You Want to WHAT???' 

@ Jeanne Sather 2011. 

Photo credits:

Top photo--Monica Strasen. This is going to be my next Assertive Cancer Patient postcard, as soon as I have time to get them printed.

Bottom photo--Steve Schneider. Steve is an old friend of mine and a good photographer. This photo of me dancing with Younger Son--and having a good time--was one of the best parts of the whole production. Younger Son sings in Seattle U's choir and has an excellent tenor voice. He's also done a lot of theater over the years--Stone Soup's kids productions, and at Seattle Prep, where he went to high school. 

No, I didn't much like Seattle Prep once Younger Son was enrolled there--I could tell you stories, but not now--but YS did, so he didn't change schools. 

Janice's Letter to Citi

Here's the letter Janice sent to Citigroup yesterday.

Thanks, Janice.

I have not edited this except to remove Janice's home address and last name, and to add a comma here and there.  

She doesn't need to get the kind of harassment I've been getting--don't worry, I'll post that once I find out if the person sent it from a real e-mail address.

My guess? Not.

I suspect it came from a friend of Erick the Smoker's. Don't know what I'm talking about? See: The Photo in Question 

 

Citigroup                                                                                               September 15, 2011

 

Mr. Vikram Pandit, CEO                                                                        

Mr. Edward Skyler, PR                                                                         

Dear Sirs, 

I am writing on behalf of my dear friend, Ms. Jeanne Sather of Seattle, WA.  Jeanne has been battling breast cancer for the past 12 years [13, actually]. She is one of the most remarkable people I have ever known.  She loves life and has filled hers with tremendous experiences of professional writer, teacher, lecturer, world traveler and cancer patient advocate as well as mother, sister, daughter, granddaughter, aunt, animal rescue worker and faithful friend.  She is at once a warrior and a living testament to all that is beautiful in humanity. 

Citibank has granted a forbearance of her home in the past but is now seeking to take it from her. Jeanne is on disability and does not have resources to make a monthly mortgage payment. She was always faithful and on time with her payments until circumstances have overwhelmed her. Jeanne has been in a new cancer trial during the past year and is currently in remission but she is still unable to pay a mortgage.  Her home is her refuge and is where she has a restorative place of serenity and peace for healing and for maintaining her sanity through all of the trials of living with metastatic breast cancer. 

She had been in contact with a representative from your bank whose name is Kevin.  Kevin and Jeanne set up a time to discuss her circumstances recently (September 12) but Kevin stood her up and has not given any explanation why.  Since this incident, Jeanne has made repeated attempts via phone and email to make contact with Kevin.

I am 2,000 miles away from Jeanne in Sarasota County Florida. The last thing I would want for Jeanne is for her to have her home taken away from her. She loves her home and has a small organic garden she plants every year in the nooks and crannies of the places she does have to plant her flowers, fruits and vegetables. She has an incredible green thumb. She lives with her service dog, Constant, and her two grown sons stop by to visit, help maintain her home and have a vegetarian repast or help weed and tend her beautiful garden often. 

Jeanne has been flying hundreds of miles to Highland, CA, for her treatments of the trial drug TDM1. She had made the trips for her treatment through donations and raffles. It was extremely hard to come up with the funds for travel and expenses. She recently was granted the opportunity to have her treatments in Seattle. This was after an extremely time consuming and draining campaign with Genentech and the FDA.  She is to receive her first treatment in Seattle today. 

I have heard of the national efforts under Making Homes Affordable Program but I am respectfully asking you to have it in your hearts to give Jeanne the title to her home outright.

 

Sincerely,

 

Janice 

P.S.  Mr. Vikram Pandit I read your message given in February of this year to the Executives’ Club of Chicago Global Leadership Luncheon. I hope and pray you meant what you said when you said “banks should help Americans get through the recession…At Citi we are doing this in a variety of ways. Through loan modifications and other means, we’ve helped more than one million Americans stay in their homes—and avoid potential foreclosure on mortgages totaling more than $125 billion.”  Mr. Pandit please help Jeanne save her beloved home.

 

What Happened to Citi?

Did I miss something? Has the company failed? Or has my contact inside CitiMortgage dropped dead of a heart attack or stroke?

Those are the only reasons I can think of that this man, let's call him Kevin, would skip a phone date to talk about my house. The house is now two weeks from foreclosure, after two back-to-back forbearance plans lasting 18 months total.

Kevin was the guy who granted my second forbearance plan after Citi's evil law firm slapped a foreclosure notice on my front door. That note was found by Older Son on his way in. Think he wasn't upset?

For more about this so-called "law firm,"  Routh Crabtree Olsen, P.S., see: Foreclosure: Cast of Characters

And it must have been posted by elves, because Constant the Wonder Dog and I were both home and neither one of us heard anyone on the porch. Connie didn't bark at all.

Never mind that I had sent in the application for an extension on my forbearance plan, which Citi received but never bothered to get to work on. Meanwhile, the collections dept. kept sending me threatening letters telling me I was a deadbeat and about to be evicted.

I ignored them, for the most part, because that is what Citi did the first time--send "you are scum" letters at the same time it was working on my forbearance plan. When the plan arrived in the mail, signed and sealed, the nasty letters still kept coming.

As I said in my communications with Citi at the time, "The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing." Terrible cliche, but appropriate for the inner workings of CitiMortgage.  

The more recent, 12-month forbearance agreement is due to expire this month. To keep my house I need to make a huge mortgage payment (I used to make good money) on October 1, and every month thereafter for the next 27 years or so, or enter into another agreement with the company.

Of course, I have no money. For a year or two now, my readers and Older Son have been paying a big share of my bills, both routine expenses and for trips to S. California every three weeks so I could get the life-saving drug T-DM1 in a clinical trial.

So Kevin is e-mailing every so often (and I tell him that the deadbeat letters are still coming--got one just last week, in fact), and in August I explained my priorities:

The month of August was devoted to saving--or at least extending--my life by fighting with Genentech and the FDA. The month of September, assuming that I did win the fight to get the T-Drug in Seattle, would be devoted to negotiating with Citi.

First, my life. Second, my house. That's how I saw it. I couldn't fight these two battles at once. 

We made a date to talk on the phone. I think I had to postpone that one because I hadn't heard from the FDA yet, or Genentech, so we made another date. --Wait, I never did hear directly from the FDA or from Genentech that I was going to get T-DM1 in Seattle. Hum ...

We made another appointment, for 4 p.m. last Thursday, the day before I was supposed to go to SCCA for some tests/scans required by the T-Drug clinical trial. Still no answer from the IRB, which I was told had final say over my getting the drug, NOT the FDA. 

Still following? I know it's confusing. Do you think I wasn't confused? I'm still confused.

Those of you who read my blog regularly will recall that I have been just a little busy here (sarcasm alert), saving my life and lobbying an evil drug company and the government agency we like to call "The Federal Delay Agency."

And it looks like I have won. I get my first T-DM1 treatment in Seattle tomorrow. Never mind that that battle took me 18 months. Check my T-DM1 category if you don't believe me. Please remember, stress makes breast cancer progress faster. 

Kevin has been very nice and has checked in with me by e-mail and occasionally phone--guess he can't read either--throughout the year. I sometimes suspected he was really checking to see if I was dead yet, since I did not expect to live longer than the one-year agreement.

Sigh ... Now that I'm going to live another year at least, possibly longer, I have all these problems to sort out. Don't even ask me about the IRS! Or the business license folks ... they keep calling and it is years since I've made a profit on any work I've done.

Back to Kevin. He e-mails every so often, and sometimes I reply. He got in touch recently saying that we were getting pretty close to the end of the agreement, and did I want help from him to sell my house? The house is now officially "underwater," so why would I go to the trouble of selling it myself? The entire cost of the house would go to Citi, none to me.

I'm not stupid. I told him at one point, when he asked about my plans for the end of the agreement, that I would start making payments again if I could afford it, sell the house if I would make some money on the sale, or just hand it back to Citi--it's all yours, guys. Add it to your supply of unsold inventory.

I've heard that some mortgage companies and banks are burning these houses down, because they can't sell them. But, yet again, I digress. 

It was Dr. Lee who told me late on Thursday last week that I was indeed in the trial. He didn't call me before because he figured the two people who had told him, including Dr. Terry Rugg, my nemesis at Genentech, would tell me.

Not Dr. Rugg. He didn't even reply to an e-mail from me, the author of this blog, a journalist by training, asking him to confirm what he had told Dr. Lee for publication. I do like to get my facts right. 

I e-mailed Kevin right away and told him I was in and could now think about my house. We had been talking a bit along the way about what I wanted (what a concept!).

I had said, "You should just give me my house." And I added something about all the good publicity Citi would get for doing this:

CitiMortgage gives house to dying cancer patient ...

Woman Battling Breast Cancer Has One Less Worry ... (or should that be, "fewer worries"?)

Surprising Generosity From Citi ... (this one is in the business press, of course)

Really, I was prepared to settle for a further extension on the forbearance agreement, to give me time to make some money now that I am in remission and feeling pretty well. Still walking with a cane, but I've started to have fun with that too. I danced, with my cane, for two solid hours at last weekend's neighborhood block party. (Yes, redundant, I know, but that's what we call it here in Ravenna.)

Kevin and I make a plan to talk at 4 p.m. on Monday, September 12. This week. 

I did send Kevin this e-mail one hour before he was supposed to call me. 

Hi Kevin--I'll be expecting your call at 4. Mostly I'll be sitting by the phone, but if I don't pick up please try again in five minutes as I may have gotten too far away to reach it before it goes to voice mail. Your call is my priority for the rest of the afternoon. 

Some things to think about:

Even though I am in clinical remission, I am a very sick woman. (I don't like to say that, but it is, unfortunately, true.)

If you like, my therapist will happily write you a letter [saying] that one reason I have lived as long as I have is because I have this house, with my dog (gone if I have to move into an apartment), the kittens I foster (also gone), my garden, my goldfish pond by the front porch, and, most important, the friends and neighbors who surround me. Sage, my favorite 6-year-old in all the world, lives right next door.

I have been suicidal at times, usually when I was depressed or at my sickest, and my therapist will tell you that the house saved me--because of the dog, the garden, the friends in the neighborhood, and even the wonderful light ... She will put that in writing if you like. 

I raised my sons in this house as a single parent, and they are both in and out a couple of times a week--to help me with chores, to have a meal, or just to talk with me, which we do for hours at a time. They are 26 and 21--too young to lose their mother. I know this: My father died of cancer when I was 21.

Some links, with photos that make my point: 

http://assertivecancerpatient.com/2011/08/narration-on-the-front-steps.html

http://assertivecancerpatient.com/2011/08/how-to-get-artistic-types-to-show-up-on-time.html

http://assertivecancerpatient.com/2011/08/having-waaay-too-much-fun.html

Sons: 

http://assertivecancerpatient.com/2011/03/wake-up-and-smell-the-pepper.html

http://assertivecancerpatient.com/2011/03/help-japan.html

http://assertivecancerpatient.com/2010/12/christmas-gifts.html

http://assertivecancerpatient.com/2010/12/a-last-photo-from-kyushu.html

http://assertivecancerpatient.com/2010/11/younger-son-is-coming-home.html

http://assertivecancerpatient.com/2010/01/modern-family-and-my-family.html

http://assertivecancerpatient.com/2009/01/cast-of-characters-older-son.html

I could also give you links to posts about my garden, my dog, and fostering kittens, but I think I've made my point. 

You should know: I just finished a three-hour interview with Carol Ostrom from The Seattle Times (she's their best health reporter). I told her my next big battle was to save my house from foreclosure by Citimortage and that I was talking to you at 4. She wants me to e-mail her and tell her what happened as soon as you and I get off the phone. That's not a threat, it's just a statement of fact.

Thanks,

Jeanne

PS: Search results on google for "Carol Ostrom" "Seattle Times":

https://encrypted.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=gsis%2Ci18n%3Dtrue&cp=13&gs_id=1e&xhr=t&q=Carol+Ostrom+Seattle+times&tok=PEJ9J0LJJVk1wkIZ91KWqA&pf=p&sclient=psy&source=hp&pbx=1&oq=Carol+Ostrom+&aq=0&aqi=g1g-v4&aql=&gs_sm=&gs_upl=&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=20dbb3f1de671a75&biw=1280&bih=610

So, does Kevin call at 4? He does not.

I e-mailed him that same day--let's give the guy the benefit of the doubt, I thought.

I think I e-mailed again yesterday, and finally, today, I called him twice, at 3:10 p.m. and 4:56 p.m.

His voice mail picked up. No return call. No e-mail reply.

WHERE IS KEVIN?

I suggest that you, my faithful readers, e-mail Citi's CEO, and also their very expensive PR guru, and ask them. While you are writing, tell them to just give Jeanne her house.  

The CEO: Vikram.Pandit@citi.com

The Expensive PR Guru: edward.skyler@citi.com

Maybe add a CC to Kevin, just in case he hasn't dropped dead: kevin.j.siwek@citi.com

Here's a quick summary of what happened last time:

A Comment From Citimortgage--Is This for Real?

Citigroup--Are You Listening?

@ Jeanne Sather 2011. Please respect my copyright. If you don't, I'll come after you with a paintball gun, and then I'll sue you. Believe me, I need the money.

I'm In !!!!!

Yes, I am in the T-DM1 clinical trial in Seattle!

After an excruciating day of waiting, I called Dr. Lee after four this afternoon and found out that he had received two communications this morning (one was e-mail, from the clinical trial coordinator, the other was from Dr. Terry Rugg at Genentech. I think that was an e-mail as well). 

They both said, basically, that I was good to go. 

It would have been nice if one or the other, or both, had thought to let ME know that everything was OK with the FDA and the Western IRB had approved the application. Of course, being me, I've let everyone know that I was waiting to hear from them. 

More details to come. I'm pretty much done for today, and I have to get up early tomorrow, and fast starting tonight, before I go in for a MUGA and then a PET. (The fasting is for the PET, of course.) Both these tests are required by the clinical trial, headed by Dr. Julie Gralow. 

Younger Son is here. He came over and spent most of the day, hanging out to help keep me sane and doing some chores with me as well. I thought I'd take him out to dinner as a thank you, but I think it's going to have to be either take-out or delivery. Luckily we have good options for both. Healthy options, too. 

More details to come, but for now, I plan to be offline for the evening, after I send one or two rounds of e-mail to people who don't check my blog often. 

Thank you all for all your various kinds of support and comfort. 

 

@ Jeanne Sather 2011. 

FDA's David Banks: Playing the Cancer Card

Now, I think playing the cancer card is a dangerous thing to do. 

I rarely do it in my daily life. My most common usage of the cancer card is as a joke to my sons and friends. For example, "Would you get that for me? I have brain tumors." Or, "Could you go to the store? I have cancer, you know."

My sons will tell you that the effectiveness of this kind of black humor wears off after less than two weeks. My friends, who hear it less often, think it is funny. Especially if I'm talking to a friend who is also living with cancer. We can bounce that joke back and forth for quite a while.

However, when David Banks "played the cancer card" during a rather heated exchange of e-mails with Seth Melnick, a friend of mine, I think he made a mistake. It was certainly unprofessional.

It also opens the doors to some questions that David may not want to answer.

For example:

1. What kind of cancer did he have?

2. He is working full time--does that mean he is cured or in remission?

David, I'd like answers to these questions. Also, I'm wondering how many years you spent in treatment, or was it just months?

Here is the original exchange of e-mails between Seth and David: 

FDA's David Banks Strikes Back

Seth's original letter to David was a variation on this one:

FDA Letters: From Seth

 

@ Jeanne Sather 2011.