Looking over  my posts for the last week or so, I realized how depressed and depressing I have been lately. In the words of the old cliché, however, it is always brightest before the dawn.

Jane’s sister and I took a field trip to Dana-Farber today to talk with Dr. Matt Kulke, who heads up the Program in Neuroendocrine and Carcinoid Tumors, Sarah Church from the development office and two of the researchers involved in a piece of work that has led to what I can only say is one of four major new moves in the fight against NET.

I’d go into all four of those new developments here and now, but I really don’t want to steal the program’s thunder. That is why I have left the two researchers’ names above in the fog. Some of the work is well advanced and ready to go to press. Other pieces are in the editing and revision stage while another piece of news is just getting started this summer.

This much I will say: the information that will be released in the coming weeks and months ranges from one end of the research spectrum to the other–and all of it will create new knowledge and new understanding of the disease. Some of it will become the foundation for another wave of research that may finally give us enough information that we can start talking about the day we will cure this disease. Two parts of this research should be appearing on the Program website fairly soon. At that point, I will be more comfortable writing here about the details of that information.

I also got to see the living face of the enemy through a microscope today. There are  actually two different kinds of cells involved in this little nasty: a carcinoid cell and a group of feeder cells. All of them seem to float independently of each other, but I was told that the carcinoid cell does not grow in the absence of the feeder cells. It was not clear what the feeder cells are producing–but they are producing something that stimulates the growth of the carcinoid cell. One of the things they are now thinking about is finding a way to kill or remove the feeder cells even if the carcinoid cells cannot be killed or removed.

I cannot describe what it was like to finally see what this disease looks like up close. Externally, I remained the calm tactician and newsman. I asked the questions that would help me understand what I was looking at and listened carefully to what the scientists were telling me. I was thankful yet again that when I get angry, I get very calm and calculating. I need to understand this thing because we cannot fight what we do not comprehend and because I need to be able to explain things to the people who do not get the opportunities I get to see these things firsthand.

But as I looked through that stereo lens, I could feel the anger and the determination returning. I have come home tonight with a new resolve and a rebuilt spirit.

We’re going to kill this thing–and everyone can help.