Well it's been almost 9 months since my last post. I don't have to tell you a lot has happened since then. But here is what's happening with David. In March, MDA stopped allowing visitors into the hospital, only patients, because of stupid covid. So I stopped coming to the monthly check-ins and only come to the quarterly scans since they are overnight. I just stay in the hotel until he finishes everything and we head home.
At the last scans in September, they told him that one spot is having progression and has been for about a year. Even though they call the disease stable. When the progression reaches 20% they would pull him out of this study and look at other options. So that is what happened today.
They talked about 2 new trials that they think David will be eligible for. One is for the immunotherapy drug Keytruda with a trial chemo drug. The drug would be taken daily and the Keytruda would be administered as an infusion every 3 weeks. This is much like what he has been doing with Opdivo. The other trial is for T-cell replacement. It would require about a month long hospital stay, but could offer a long term remission or cure. David told them to be aggressive. They gave him 2 weeks off of everything and will let him know which study is available the soonest.
Of course we are a little discouraged, this treatment has been the easiest and most successful of all, by far. But we are also hopeful that the next treatment could offer long term success. The PA reminded him that he has been on this treatment for about 2 and a half years and really it's just the one spot that is growing. Also even though it has progressed, the treatment overall greatly reduced the cancer and it is now much less than it was 2 and a half years ago.
So that's where we are now and we should know more in the next couple of weeks.
Please pray that the way is clear for the best treatment option going forward. I will update when we find out what that is.
Thank you for loving us.
