Thursday, December 9,1993
5B
EDGE OF LIFE
"Man wants to live comfortably and pleasantly, but nature intends that he should raise himself out of lethargy and inactive contentment."
ing'
m-
its-
or-
ays
ing
of
- Immanuel Kant
o pictures of his family.
ugh he is optimistic
While a student answers a question, Young sits on a desk to relieve the pressure caused by blood clots in his feet. He says he learns more about philosophy every day he teaches.
(Above) Young sits with his son, Bryan. The books on the coffee table describe the professor's interests in poetry, nature and philosophy. (Below) Lorraine Claassen, Hesston junior, and Truman Scholarship applicant, reads over her application with Young. Young is director of the KU Honors Center.
THE BASICS OF IMMUNOTHERAPY
WHEN MELANOMA cancer spreads to the brain, it does not respond to proven treatments, such as radiation, chemotherapy and surgery. Immunotherapy, which Michael Young is undergoing, is an experimental treatment that increases the body's immune system response to cancer cells. According to Gary Wood, Young's immunotherapist, the treatment uses the patient's cancer cells to light the cancerous tumors;
1. The first step of the treatment is to surgically remove the tumors from the body. Michael Young has had three tumors taken from his brain.
A nurse draws blood from a catheter in Young's chest to extract white blood cells. The process takes up to three hours. Young had the tubes implanted into the upper left portion of his chest to aid in drawing blood for immunotherapy.
3 The neutralized cells are then injected into the patient to prepare the white blood cells, also called T-lymphocytes, to attack the tumor cells.
2. Then the tumor cells are neutralized with radiation to prevent them from multiplying.
4. The next step is to take the primed white blood cells out of the body.
see more photos
n'the her she is a
'is this on a cafee
e," wed wall
5. In the laboratory, doctors use tumor cells to stimulate the white blood cells.
6. Then the white blood cells are ready to be injected into the body to fight the tumors. In September, Young received contaminated white blood cells during this step of the process, which nearly killed him. Bacteria had been on the rim of the test tubes holding the white blood cells. Since the infection in September, Young has undergone the entire treatment again. On Friday, he was admitted to Providence Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan., to begin the last step of the treatment, receiving the primed white blood cells. Doctors should know how well he is responding to the treatment by early January.
The Med Center's immunotherapy program was designed for brain cancer patients. Gary Wood, Young's immunotherapist at the Med Center, said that immunotherapy had never cured a person of cancer but that it had been able temporarily to reduce the size of tumors.
trout. But fly fishing was not easy to learn.
"I spent about 80 percent of my time climbing pine and spruce trees retrieving flies," he said. "But when it's done right, it just is beautiful."
His 23-year-old daughter, Michelle Young, who is now a dancer in Las Vegas, does not share her father's love for fly fishing.
1970. Michael and his wife, Carolyn Young, brought home 6-week-old Michelle, an African American, Carolyn Young said they had already had planned to adopt a baby that would not have otherwise had a permanent home.
"It seemed to us it might be one small way to overcome racial differences." Michael Young said.
But it was not always easy. Others were quick to hurl racial insults at Michelle, especially when they lived on Long Island, N.Y., for a year while Young was doing research.
"We were very idealistic," Carolyn Young said. "We felt if we acted on our ideals, they would come true."
Disagreement comes easier as a grandparent. When asked about Michelle's 3-year-old daughter, Michael Young smiles and says Brittany is wonderful.
"There was just no room for that in his methodical thinking." Carolyn Young said. "They are cut from a different cloth."
Michael Young and his daughter are very different people, Carolyn Young said. Michelle was not particularly interested in school or her artistic ability.
He remembers a Sunday last spring when she was eating dinner with her grandparents. Brittany decided she was finished eating and began talking about leaving her high chair. But Young was not paying attention.
"She looked at me and said, 'Hey! I talking to you!" "Young said. "I just laughed."
But Jason Young, 24, who now works in Manhattan, N.Y., for Teach for America, a volunteer teaching corporation, is cut from the same cloth as his father, Carolyn Young said.
Jason Young prides himself on being independent. He is
not always quick to tell his family of his thoughts, plans or feelings.
"Jason doesn't readily let you into his life," Carolyn Young said.
"There's a lot to live for"
- His father can be like that, too.
It is 8:05 on a Monday night, and Carolyn Young is teaching a cello and violin lesson at home on Highland Drive.
Her husband is not around, but a "New York Times Magazine" lies open on the kitchen table to a review of "Reveries of a Solitary Walker" by Jean Jacques Rousseau. The review is titled "The Promenades of a Philosopher."
Together, Michael and Carolyn Young often take long walks for exercise and to enjoy nature. When they first moved *Lawrence* in 1969, she said, they used to sit at their window and watch storm clouds thunder into view
Carolyn Young teaches social studies at Highland Park High School in Topeka. Philosophy never interested her, but she shares her love for music and nature with her husband.
Carolyn and Michael Young met in high school. He was captain of the football team, and she was captain of the pompon squad. They celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary in January.
They have spent many summer vacations hiking in the Colorado mountains.
"I was singing 'Am I Blue' and 'Singing in the Rain' and other appropriate songs, and lightning was bouncing all around us," she said. "We've had other brushes with death."
She remembers one hike when threatening, black clouds forced them to crouch in a small depression.
After the storm, they worked up enough courage to slide down Andrew's Glacier. Michael Young broke his tail-bone.
"Ive often said that he was made of Kmart materials."
Carolyn Young said and laughed. "For such a strong man, he is kind of fragile."
But he is determined to live, she said.
"When he had just gotten out of brain surgery, he quizzed everyone in the recovery room," she said. "He just wanted to be sure that he knew the things that he knew and still had the ability to learn.
"He's very strong-willed," she said. "If you lived with him, you could stubborn."
Since his illness, Carolyn Young spends hours studying articles and books on melanoma and its treatments. She walks her husband's black Labrador, an animal she never really liked. She encourages her husband to continue thinking positively and to attend his cancer support group.
And he appreciates everything.
"This whole illness, as you can imagine, has been hell for her," Michael Young said. "The fact that I still live under this imminent threat of death, that's pretty scary.
"She's had to think about all those long-term questions that surround death: What are our assets? How is she going to manage?"
The worst, she said, was during the fever. At one point, her husband opened his eyes and looked at her sitting by the bed.
"He asked, 'When is my wife going to be here,' "she said. "I said, 'am your wife.' Then he began to cry."
I said, I am you wife. Then he began to Jason and Michelle Young flew home.
Carolyn Young said she kept thinking about all the students in his classes and in the honors program.
"One reason I was so determined that he should live was that I think he does a lot of good, and he should be around for years and years and years." she said.
"Statistically, I should be dead," he said. "The average
But the National Institute for Cancer Research refuses to treat melanoma patients with brain cancer because there is no proven treatment. The immunotherapy program at the University of Kansas Medical Center does not usually treat patients with cancer as advanced as Young's.
Last Friday, doctors resumed the treatment that had caused the September infection, which nearly killed him.
survival time for people with my cancer is two months,
and I'm well past that."
"Basically I'm confident and optimistic, but I have occasional moments of fear," Young said.
Others in his cancer support group rely on God and the promise for a better life after death. He does not have that resource.
"It would be nice to know that there is going to be an afterlife, and things would be reasonably good." Young said. "There's a real consolation in thinking you're not really going to disappear. If you think you are, on the other hand, that's not a very pleasant thought."
Maybe it is the philosopher in him, he said. He believes that, with proof, knowledge is possible.
"The most simple-minded skeptic would claim to know that knowledge is impossible, which is paradoxical," he said.
But there is not enough persuasive evidence for him to know there is a God.
So he concentrates on life.
Whether he is planning the new class he will teach next semester. Themes in Modern Philosophy, or watching a beaver dam grow south of Interstate 70 as he drives to his immunotherapy appointment at the Blood Center of Greater Kansas City, Young relishes having his mind, something the tumors denied him from May to September.
"I treasure every single day that my mind is clear and fresh." he said.
And even though the odds are against them, they have not given up hope for the future.
Right row, Michael and Carolyn Young are researching other treatments in case the immunotherapy treatment at the Med Center fails.
"We want to see Bryan and Roura's kids, and we want to see if Jason ever gets married and if Michelle ever finds her man," she said. "There'a lot to live for."