Reflections on the Knife Edge

The accompanying article, written by John Murphy, a retired lawyer and lifelong outdoorsman from his beloved Colorado Rockies, draws the striking parallel between his experiences as a mountain climber and as a patient with metastatic melanoma facing the hope and uncertainty of experimental therapy. Both are life-threatening circumstances, demanding courage and hope, and challenging our soul in a way almost unique to human experience. Both involve a conscious choice to move forward into dangerous and uncertain territory, and require a determination to look death (John's “Reaper”) in the eye. Many remarkable books and films have been written about such experiences. I recall in particular the 2003 documentary film Touching the Void, about the incredible survival of a mountaineer who returned from a perilous fall in Peru. I highly recommend it to the reader. Another is Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (Random House, 2010), about the survival of a prisoner of war, the celebrated miler Louis Zamperini. Again, unbridled courage and undeniable hope turned futility into future. John Murphy's reflections remind us of the daily heroism of our patients who are holding tight to the lifeline offered by clinical research. Good climbing, John. All of us are with you on that Knife Edge, waiting for our turn to ascend... and hoping to be as courageous as you were then on Capitol Peak and are again now on the Knife Edge of a clinical trial. For our turn will come.