I’m lookin’ for me. You’re lookin’ for you.

We're lookin' at each other and we don't know what to do. They call me The Seeker. I've been searchin' low and high. I won't get to get what I'm after 'til the day I die.

Both my parents have been living with cancer for several years. I’ll spare you many of the details, but Mom’s adventure started on December 16, 2015. She had the cancer (and a kidney) removed on Christmas Eve. Dad was diagnosed almost exactly a year later, though they left his in place because his kidney cancer appeared to be slow growing and when you also have heart disease and diabetes, two mostly functioning kidneys are better than one.

Over the years, they’ve both had scans checking for changes, with Mom’s being more regular (every 3-4 months) through private practice than Dad’s via the VA system. Dad has had no changes to his cancer over the years. Mom has had (I think) three procedures over the six and a half years, including one time when her kidney cancer made its way to a lung.

In May of this year, Dad started experiencing some abdominal and back pain. He toughed it out, waiting until his already scheduled August appointment to find out what was up. A CT scan three days later showed a two-inch mass on his lung. A biopsy confirmed a new cancer (adenocarcinoma) with other possible areas of concern, and a PET scan was scheduled for last Monday morning.

All of us “kids” had been home on the weekend before the PET scan, which I think was good medicine for everyone. By the time we got Dad’s results in midafternoon of the same day, my brother and younger sister had made their way back to their homes. We texted about the results: three growths in the lung, the smallest being 1.5 inches, plus more in nearby lymph nodes. I went home late that afternoon.

We were still digesting Dad’s information that night when my older sister sent a family text telling us that Mom was going to the ER with back pain. About an hour later, we discovered Mom also was dealing with a large mass where her original cancer and kidney had been – 10.6cm x 4.6cm x 5.4cm. For reference, that’s about the length of a softball diameter (9.7cm) by the width of a golf ball (4.3cm) by the depth of a racquet ball (5.5cm). Her last scan was in July; at the time, she was given a clean bill of health.

I’ve always liked a good puzzle, but this isn’t a good puzzle. I have more questions than answers. There’s the original question that’s hung out in my brain since 2016: why would two people in the same household both have kidney cancer? Is it the water? Will my siblings and I all get kidney cancer too? Maybe. Maybe not. Through a granddaughter of the family that lived in the house before us, nobody in that family had cancer. Maybe it’s just dumb luck.

Let’s set that puzzle aside and pick up the other elephant in the room. Why would two people in the same household, who both had slow growing cancers over the period of 5-6+ years, suddenly and simultaneously experience incredible rapid cancer growth in months? In my mind, the options are either a) even more dumb luck, or b) something environmental triggered the growth. Did they roll in plutonium? No. Did they change diets? No. Did their water source change? No, they’ve been in the same house since 1974. I’m sure there are other environmental possibilities to consider.

Maybe COVID has something to do with it? My Dad had COVID in January, and though Mom didn’t test positive, she also was fighting something at the same time. A friend of mine sent me a link from the National Institute of Health:

COVID-19–Induced Modifications in the Tumor Microenvironment: Do They Affect Cancer Reawakening and Metastatic Relapse?

I won’t pretend to understand everything in this article, but the hypothesis of the authors is in plain English: “COVID-19–associated inflammation may generate a microenvironment favorable to tumor cell proliferation and particularly to the reawakening of dormant cancer cells.” Could this be the key, assuming they both had COVID in January? Maybe.

Are there other environmental changes? I can think of one: Mom and Dad both got COVID boosters in March or April. I admit I came up with this one as an option before I received the NIH link. My hypothesis was that the COVID vaccine causes killer T-cells to shut off or malfunction. So instead of a healthy immune system continuing to fight off the cancer that’s been slow growing for years in my Mom, and a previously undetected cancer in my Dad, the cancers take off unabated. Could that be the key? It might just be my bias to say the COVID vaccines are the bad guy. I’ll admit that. But if, when reading the above paragraph, you agreed that maybe COVID could be blamed for the rapid growth in my parents’ cancers, why wouldn’t you also consider the vaccines as a possibility? If COVID can possibly affect cancer reawakening and metastatic relapse by causing “impairment of T-cell and natural killer (NK) cell activity,” then why wouldn’t the vaccine also possibly cause a similar impairment? And if you think that could be a possibility, why would you ever get COVID vaccinated or boosted?

I don’t know what the answer is to this problem. I’m seeking answers because if it happened to my parents, maybe it’s happened to others. I personally know several people who had new cancers or recurrences of old cancers in the past year. I know others peripherally who also have had a new cancer appear. Is that just natural because I’m of an age where cancer is more prevalent in my circles? Have they all had some environmental change that triggered their cancers? Have they had COVID? Have they had the vaccine?

Let me know what you think. I’m searching low and high.