Creativity

I read a definition of creativity that I really liked this week: “Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity is the ability to perceive the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate solutions.” Creative people just see the world through different eyes. Where most of us see a problem or impossible mountain to climb, creative people see an opportunity to do something differently and find a way through the mountain. Where most of us just see cancer, creative people see tree bark as a possible solution.

For me to operate in my comfort zone I need to understand the terrain of the mountain I’m facing. That means understanding as best I can, with my limited scientific background, triple negative breast cancer and the treatments I will be receiving to eradicate it. One of the drugs I will be given in the next phase of my chemotherapy regimen is a newer Taxol-based drug called Abraxane. My research turned up some really interesting facts about the origin of this drug. Paclitaxel (Taxol) is a cancer drug derived from the bark of the Pacific yew tree,Taxus brevifolia, which grows in the Pacific Northwest. The first bark for study was collected August 21, 1962 by a team of botanists at a site 7 miles north of Packwood, Washington, in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. (Interestingly, this discovery was made at about the same time my mother “discovered” she was expecting me!) In the early 1980s when clinical trials of the drug began, several hundred thousand pounds of bark had to be harvested each year, since the bark from a single tree only yielded enough Taxol for about one dose of the drug. Thankfully, scientists are now able to synthesize the compound from precursors found in the common ornamental yew, Taxus baccata. Taxol is widely used in the treatment of several different forms of cancer. Abraxane (nab-Paclitaxel) has an added protein that makes it less harsh and a bit more effective on certain cancers. From tree bark to cancer drug—you can’t get much more creative than that! Unless perhaps, you are a researcher from the University of Texas looking for a treatment for COVID-19 in the antibodies of Winter the llama, but that’s another story!

In addition to the 12 weekly doses of Abraxane, I will have 4 doses of another drug, Atezolizumab, every 3 weeks and an additional 4 doses following surgery. Atezolizumab is not a chemotherapy drug. It is a completely different form of treatment called immunotherapy. Our immune systems have cells called t-cells whose job it is to protect us from viruses, bacteria and other diseases. They are circulating all around our bodies. When these t-cells bump up next to a cell they identify as an invader, such as a virus or infection, they activate and destroy it. Pretty impressive system. The problem is, cancer whispers in the t-cell’s ear that it’s not an invader, that it’s a healthy cell, so the t-cells in the immune system leave the cancer cells alone. Atezolizumab takes the blinders off the t-cell and allows it to recognize the cancer cell for the destroyer it is, activating the body’s own immune system to fight and kill the cancer. How amazing is that? The scientist who discovered how cancer tricked the body’s immune system and how to turn the good t-cell response back on, Dr. Jim Allison, is at M D Anderson. He received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2018 for his work. 

God is the ultimate expression of creativity. He created the heavens and the earth out of nothing, simply by speaking the world into existence. People can create things—art, buildings, cancer drugs—but no matter how unique these new creations are, they are all made from preexisting materials. They may be put together in a new or different way, but they were not created out of nothing. Only God can do that.  God has provided the raw materials needed for my body to heal from triple negative breast cancer—tree bark and my own immune system. He gave scientists the curiosity, tenacity and intelligence to think outside the box and discover just how tree bark and t-cells could be used to fight my disease. He brought about the discovery of these drugs in His good time, just in time, to be used to heal my cancer. I trust in God’s promises and provision.