Rolling With the Punches
Until today, this man has been my oncologist. His name is Robinson Ortiz, MD and I credit him with saving my life. Dr. Ortiz was the guy on-call the day I was admitted into the hospital, through the ER, for a metastatic disease work-up. That was in December of 2012. He was kind from the moment Wynn and I first met him. He gave us terribly bad news, gently, so we could absorb the words he had to tell us. As soon as it was established that I had non-small cell adenocarcinoma of the lung, Dr. Ortiz ordered genetic tumor testing for mutations in two genes known to cause the type of cancer I have. Based on my demographics, the chance that I'd have one of these was estimated to be 80-85%. I had neither. Dr. Ortiz then recommended testing for mutations in a newly described gene called ROS1. Earlier in 2012, journal articles associating mutations i...