Questions About Recurrence
Dr. Robert Maki: That's a difficult question to get - it's something that is very much an individual discussion. A lot of the time though people are obviously frightened: "What's happening to me? How did this happen?" Often times it's not their fault; it's nothing they were really exposed to, but it's just (in quotation marks) "bad luck."
But more to the point: "What's going to happen to me now?" When it comes to chemotherapy, this is where it's important to get a sense of the side effects of any treatment that you might receive. It's a very important dialogue to have - as well as getting an understanding of "how long am I going to live?" If this tumor has come back, it's possible that the tumor can be cut out and removed completely, but for a lot of people that really isn't an option, and so: "What does it mean in terms of the rest of my life? What am I going to go through in terms of side effects and quality of life? And how can I continue to interact with my family and my friends?" All of those are very important questions that we begin to address as we meet people with recurrences of their sarcomas.