Thank you for all your prayers yesterday and today. I know I could feel them, and I'm sure David did too.
Funny thing about prayer. Funny in a kind of annoying way honestly. Sometime God says no. I was really praying for at least stability so we could just continue with what we know. But that's not what we got. There has been growth in several of the lung nodules and some new ones are present. Also the lymph node has grown. We saw the PA and Dr. T, they are both in emphatic agreement that we are done with the current treatment and it's time to move on. They are very encouraged that David was able to do so well on this drug and think that that will be a positive going into the next treatment.
So the new study is another trial. David will be only the 13th patient in this study. It is a combination of an approved immunotherapy drug and a new oral drug. Their thought is that David will have a great response to combining these two drugs. There is even hope of remission with this treatment. It will be more time consuming as far as trips to Houston, but weighing all the options, we think it's worth the trips. It will be every 2 weeks for maybe 2 months, then every 4 weeks. The good thing about it is that most of the appts will only be 1 day long, not overnight each time. The travel up and back in one day will be tiring but we won't be away from home as long. Got to look for the silver, right? We originally thought the infusions could be done locally, but that was if we chose only the FDA approved drug and not the study. They were very frank with us that while we could continue treatment at MDA not in a trial, that the best care and best chance of success, is under a trial.
So we press on. We won't be seeing our research nurse, Marisa anymore. We were actually her last patient, as she is now the head of all the research nurses, working in a more admin role and not directly with patients. We will miss her very much, we've spent almost 5 years with her! She said we'll see her around!
We have a new research nurse. Her name is Shedani. I think. We will love her too. Our whole team is so great, so caring, and so compassionate. They really are incredible and we know it's the best place to be. There were some tears all around today.
It was a lot to wrap our heads around today, like starting over. They told us at the beginning that this cancer would eventually find a way around the current treatment and we would have to switch. We are buying time and hoping for a cure eventually. So here we go...
Please pray for
1. A smooth transition
2. Less side effects
3. Effectiveness in slaying this dragon
4. Laura who just lost her mother and whose sister is battling.
5. Holli who continues to fight
6. Lorraine who has the best smile through it all
7. Bobby
8. an undiagnosed disease
9. Family. This is not fun for anyone
Thank you for loving us.
