jan lesser, cancer survivor, manhattan beach, calif.
Written on August 26, 2009
when i arrived to photograph jan, she and her husband, rick, were taking care of their grandson, noah. rick was making tacos for the family, cooking expertly in a well-worn, well-loved cast iron skillet. it was a simple act, a simple day, but even talking to them for a few minutes i could tell that those simple things were not casually overlooked in this house. nine years ago jan was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. her chance of survival was plainly stated by her doctors: zero. by the time they had discovered it the cancer had aggressively spread to her brain and liver.
surgery removed the tumors from her brain, but even after three rounds of chemotherapy the tumors in her lungs and liver remained. she was 47 years old. jan was being treated at cedars-sinai hospital (the hospital where i was born, coincidentally), and her doctors managed to get her in to the phase II clinical trial of a drug called iressa.
ultimately the drug was not approved for use in the US by the FDA. the trials failed to show effectiveness often enough, as only about 10% of patients responded to it. for jan lesser, though, it was a miracle pill. no more chemo. no more nausea. no more headaches, or weakness. just one pill a day. she said she felt better almost immediately. she went from having weeks or months to live, to being totally cancer free now for almost nine years. she still takes iressa, as it’s approved in the US only for patients on whom it’s already shown a positive result.
today jan feels good. rick feels good. noah has a grandmother. jan was one of only 27 people in that stage of the trial. she’s alive and well today because of a little luck mixed with a whole lot of research and science. sometimes no matter how many terrible things happen to us we still manage to find ourselves in the right place at the right time, despite it all.
