Karma Kenny Good Karma Beats Cancer

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As way of background, Karma had a routine colonoscopy procedure before Thanksgiving and after the procedure she just did not feel right.  However in true Karma fashion she still managed to celebrate her 60th birthday with her family on an extended Thanksgiving trip to New York City.  Karma checked off several of her bucket list items including appearing on the Today Show, watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, seeing the Rockettes Holiday Spectacular Show at Radio City Music Hall, paying a visit to the 911 Memorial and Museum, ate at phenomenal restaurants, visited several Irish Pubs along the way, and wrapping up the weekend enjoying Hamilton on Broadway.  It was a tremendous family weekend as all of us were together for 5 fun filled days.  Karma returned from NYC and really felt fatigued.  Now back to the colonoscopy, which as it turns out was just a mere coincidence, however it did send us in the wrong direction for a couple of weeks as we tried to figure out with the Gastroenterologist what was causing Karma's symptoms.  When Karma went back to her primary care physician she ordered a Chest X-ray which revealed a mass on Karma's lung.  This was December 17, 2019.  One test begat another test as we also discovered cancer on liver and pancreas as well.  All the while Karma's general health was deteriorating and we ended up in Suburban Hospital for four days.  A biopsy was performed and now the wait was on for a diagnosis.  The diagnosis was Metastatic Melanoma.  Karma is already a one time cancer survivor having beat stage 2 melanoma and related surgery in 2008.  It is likely that current cancer is related but they cannot be absolutely certain.  Meanwhile Karma's pain, especially in her back, which had been present for last several months was now becoming acute.  Additional scans and PET Scan confirmed all of the prior findings and also showed numerous tumors and metastatic disease in the axial and appendicular skeleton.  This has been the source of Karma's pain, which has been almost unbearable over the past several weeks.  We continue to struggle finding the right medications to ease the pain and we are hopeful that recent addition of Fentanyl Patch will provide adequate relief.  As we move forward Karma will begin her treatment plan of Immunotherapy.  These treatments and various drug combinations,  which are all relatively new, have been showing really strong results in other patients.  We are very encouraged and hopeful this treatment plan will be as successful for Karma.


Thank you and please keep Karma in your thoughts and prayers.