Tomorrow, early on a Monday morning,
I will be back at Stanford for my next CT scan. No matter how many times
that I do this, it never gets easier. I had a fitful night of
sleep. Not knowing whether my entire life is going to change in the blink
of an eye is so scary. What if the tumors have grown? What if
the tumors have spread? Am I about to be subjected to chemo or
surgery? Or what if the information is worse?
No matter how fearful tomorrow may be, I remain grateful for this past year. I had a wonderful, relatively pain free summer (except recovering from the knee surgery from my ski accident). We recently got back from spending 3 glorious weeks in Europe, visiting the sights of London and enjoying the company of friends and family in Belgium and Spain. We then headed off to our annual Lair of the Bear trip in the Sierras for a week of rustic fun. What a blessing to have a relatively worry-free summer without chemo. This was the first summer since 2007 that I was not taking chemo. I cannot overemphasize how great it felt. My hope is that thousands of other cancer patients will also be blessed with the same opportunity to have access to this treatment and will get a little bit of relief from the worry and the chemo. PDL-1 gave me an amazing year of life. Oh - how I love Stanford and Genentech.
So – what happens next? We’re not sure. The standard protocol for patients on PDL-1 is that they are approved for 16 cycles. I have already had 15. Officially, I’ll be kicked off of the study after this week. My oncologists have told me that if tomorrow’s scan shows that the tumors are holding steady or decreasing in size, that they will go back to Genentech and request that I remain on the study. If Genentech turns them down, then they are considering putting me on an investigator-funded study (paid for by Stanford) that they are about to launch which would combine PDL-1 with a drug by Bristol-Myers Squibb called Ipilimumab (known as ipi). While ipi has been infused in the past, because of the high level of toxicity associated with this delivery system, Stanford is planning to inject ipi directly into the tumors. This will act much like the radiation treatment that I had back in February, which broke down the tumors so that the immune system has “bite sized” pieces to absorb and learn from. Stanford is the only cancer institute in the world that will be doing this protocol. It looks like I'll continue to be one of the guinea pigs of colon cancer....
Of course, my biggest concern is that the tumors grew or spread. In that case, I’m really not sure what the plan will be. Fortunately, I have the best oncologists a girl could hope to have to create our plan of action.
At 9 am tomorrow, I will be getting my CT scan and then will be meeting with Drs. Fisher and Kohrt to talk about next steps. (Please send some prayers/good thoughts my way tomorrow morning....)
I’ll keep you all posted when I know more – now it’s time for me to get some rest….
No matter how fearful tomorrow may be, I remain grateful for this past year. I had a wonderful, relatively pain free summer (except recovering from the knee surgery from my ski accident). We recently got back from spending 3 glorious weeks in Europe, visiting the sights of London and enjoying the company of friends and family in Belgium and Spain. We then headed off to our annual Lair of the Bear trip in the Sierras for a week of rustic fun. What a blessing to have a relatively worry-free summer without chemo. This was the first summer since 2007 that I was not taking chemo. I cannot overemphasize how great it felt. My hope is that thousands of other cancer patients will also be blessed with the same opportunity to have access to this treatment and will get a little bit of relief from the worry and the chemo. PDL-1 gave me an amazing year of life. Oh - how I love Stanford and Genentech.
So – what happens next? We’re not sure. The standard protocol for patients on PDL-1 is that they are approved for 16 cycles. I have already had 15. Officially, I’ll be kicked off of the study after this week. My oncologists have told me that if tomorrow’s scan shows that the tumors are holding steady or decreasing in size, that they will go back to Genentech and request that I remain on the study. If Genentech turns them down, then they are considering putting me on an investigator-funded study (paid for by Stanford) that they are about to launch which would combine PDL-1 with a drug by Bristol-Myers Squibb called Ipilimumab (known as ipi). While ipi has been infused in the past, because of the high level of toxicity associated with this delivery system, Stanford is planning to inject ipi directly into the tumors. This will act much like the radiation treatment that I had back in February, which broke down the tumors so that the immune system has “bite sized” pieces to absorb and learn from. Stanford is the only cancer institute in the world that will be doing this protocol. It looks like I'll continue to be one of the guinea pigs of colon cancer....
Of course, my biggest concern is that the tumors grew or spread. In that case, I’m really not sure what the plan will be. Fortunately, I have the best oncologists a girl could hope to have to create our plan of action.
At 9 am tomorrow, I will be getting my CT scan and then will be meeting with Drs. Fisher and Kohrt to talk about next steps. (Please send some prayers/good thoughts my way tomorrow morning....)
I’ll keep you all posted when I know more – now it’s time for me to get some rest….
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