Within the fall of 2022, Robin Clough and Dr. Gene Dorio had been going about their lives as that they had for a few years, serving older adults within the Santa Clarita Valley. Clough was busy along with her work as an administrator on the native senior middle whereas Dorio, a house-call geriatrician, crisscrossed the valley visiting his sufferers.
In November of that yr, Clough noticed a lump on her neck and had it checked out. The early indication was that she had papillary thyroid most cancers.
“I used to be considerably nervous,” stated Clough, however not overly so, as a result of she knew that kind of most cancers was treatable and extremely survivable. “So behind my thoughts it was like, ‘Oh, I’m so fortunate. … It’s the best kind of most cancers to care for.’”
Then issues took a pointy flip for the more severe. “I observed it rising so much,” Clough, 70, stated of the lump. “I used to be having hassle talking.”
Surgical procedure was scheduled. Dorio, 72, stated it was anticipated to take about three hours to take away the tumor and half of Clough’s thyroid gland. However the process dragged on. When the surgeon up to date Dorio 9 hours later, the information was grim. The tumor had unfold by means of the thyroid gland, onto the carotid artery and into the tracheal rings.
“He informed me it was in every single place,” Dorio stated.
Assessments revealed that Clough had anaplastic thyroid most cancers, a much more aggressive type than papillary.
Everyone knows our fortunes can flip with out a lot warning, particularly as we age and the percentages stack in opposition to us, elevating the specter of our our bodies regularly failing and our minds fading. However in simply a few weeks, Clough and Dorio had gone from cruising by means of life to confronting dying.
Dr. Gene Dorio kisses Robin Clough within the kitchen of their dwelling. Dorio, a house-call geriatrician, has been spending a lot of his time caring for Clough.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Instances)
Along with her kind of most cancers, life expectancy is usually measured in months relatively than years. “It was so laborious to course of, and I feel my thoughts stopped me from processing it as a result of it’s simply too overwhelming,” Clough stated.
They’d fallen for one another about 20 years in the past after every had been married and divorced. Dorio has a daughter named Janene. Clough has two daughters, Catie and Amy. The Dorio-Clough courtship and mixing of the 2 households started with him giving her a flu shot at her senior middle; then he had her on his native radio present, “The Senior Hour.”
They by no means married, and nonetheless don’t see the necessity.
“We’re appropriate and we love one another … and have the identical pursuits — combating for folks’s rights,” stated Dorio, who, together with Clough, pushed for laws — signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom — giving households extra authority to find out medical choices for family members even within the absence of an advance directive. Dorio had additionally served on the L.A. County Fee for Older Adults.
Robin Clough recollects how tough the weeks of most cancers remedy have been.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Instances)
Going through her grim analysis, Clough and Dorio leaned on one another and on Janene, Catie and Amy. There have been weekly Zoom conferences to bolster spirits and share details about rising therapies.
I’d gotten to know Dorio slightly bit through the years, having tagged alongside on his home calls, so I used to be copied on the periodic updates on Clough’s standing that he mailed to family and friends. She beat the three-to-six-month prediction, and in July of 2023 Dorio wrote to say she was higher, “however nonetheless has a methods to go.”
By then, she’d undergone seven consecutive weeks of chemotherapy and radiation, struggling pores and skin burns on her neck from the latter. A metastatic lesion was surgically faraway from her leg. Dorio took Clough to MD Anderson Most cancers Heart in Houston on a suggestion from Cedars-Sinai.
“To all our family and friends,” Dorio wrote in that July replace, “searching for a second opinion and being persistent in researching and asking questions of your physician crew is essential, it doesn’t matter what the analysis is likely to be. It’s bodily and emotionally a curler coaster. However we now have been given great help from our household and lots of of you locally. We’ll present assist and steering sooner or later do you have to want it.”
In Houston, medical employees queried Clough about her household historical past. “This most cancers is usually attributable to radiation publicity,” Clough stated, “and one of many first issues they requested me … was the place did you develop up?”
Her reply was Arizona, downwind from nuclear weapons testing in close by Nevada within the Nineteen Forties and ’50s that contaminated water, soil and meals sources for years.
I requested Clough if she had seen the Oscar-winning film “Oppenheimer,” in regards to the creation of the primary nuclear weapons.
“I gained’t watch it,” she stated firmly.
It’s inconceivable to instantly hyperlink Clough’s most cancers to weapons testing, however the federal Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention experiences that folks uncovered to radiation fallout, “particularly throughout childhood, could have an elevated danger of thyroid illness, together with thyroid most cancers a few years later.”
Oncologists Alain Mita at Cedars-Sinai and Maria Cabanillas at MD Anderson, who had collaborated beforehand on sufferers with anaplastic thyroid most cancers, decided that Clough’s type of most cancers warranted remedy with Keytruda, a drug that stimulates the immune system.
However after a number of months of remedy that had confirmed some promise, the most cancers was rising once more. In late December, Clough’s medical doctors switched to a drug referred to as Retevmo, a focused remedy that blocks the motive force of tumor progress.
Dr. Gene Dorio postpone hip surgical procedure to care for his accomplice, Robin Clough, and makes use of a cane for help.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Instances)
A hopeful Dorio recalled that in a 2017 weblog publish, he had written that “genetic engineering analysis is on the verge of discovering the DNA ‘cease button’ ” for most cancers cell progress. He added, “Hopefully at some point our great-grandkids will ask … ‘What was most cancers?’”
One month into Retevmo medicine, Clough needed to cease due to adversarial negative effects to her liver. However a brand new scan revealed what appeared to her like a miracle.
The most cancers was gone.
Two months later, she had one other check.
No most cancers.
“Her most cancers is, at this second, undetectable and in remission. For anaplastic most cancers that’s very uncommon,” Dr. Mita informed me.
That doesn’t imply the most cancers gained’t return, he stated. However in the meanwhile, there’s trigger for optimism.
Mita stated that 10 years in the past he couldn’t have predicted this measure of success in opposition to such an aggressive most cancers, and he’s hopeful medical science will see extra advances within the coming years. With some cancers, he stated, medical doctors are actually in a position to skip chemotherapy and radiation in favor of meds like these used to deal with Clough.
Cabanillas shared his optimism, saying survival charges at MD Anderson have improved with some types of anaplastic thyroid most cancers by utilizing “immunotherapy together with focused remedy.”
In her kitchen a number of days in the past, with the women’ school diplomas and household pictures hanging on the partitions, Clough stated it’s all been overwhelming at instances, and Dorio chimed in on his personal worries and willpower to stay sturdy for her sake. Clough’s life has been consumed by physician visits, surgical procedures, continued disagreeable negative effects from remedy and the fixed anxiousness of awaiting the following check outcomes.
“I by no means felt prefer it was an excessive amount of,” Clough stated. “There are occasions once I suppose, I’m so bored with this. But it surely’s by no means been an excessive amount of, and I feel that’s due to my family members.”
Dorio, in the meantime, put his observe on maintain to deal with the house-call affected person who lives in his own residence. He’s been pushing aside hip substitute surgical procedure, too, and makes use of a cane.
It’s greater than slightly useful, Clough stated, when, within the midst of a life-threatening medical disaster, the individual you reside with is a health care provider. She stated she by no means felt that she may beat most cancers completely, “however that I may maintain it below management. And I nonetheless have that hope.” Every day, she stated, is a bonus.
Clough shed a number of tears as she informed her story, but additionally flashed a radiant smile.
“I used to be purported to be gone, however I’m not. So day by day is ‘Wow,’ you already know? I get to see my daughters, and within the strategy of this I had my first grandchild.”
The child boy is now 11 months previous.
His identify is Robin.
