Update: August 23, 2010

Greetings loyal SWJpages! There are a couple of things.


First, I was notified on Friday that I have been officially removed from the trial at Duke. My tumors, in eight weeks time, have grown from five percent of the baseline which was considered stable to over thirty percent of the baseline, which was considered progressive. In addition to the growth, there was a new lesion in the lungs which served as another signal that the trial wasn’t doing me much good. My research nurse was really nice in conveying the information to me. She promised to continue to look for good treatment options for me and to contact some people she knows at Sarah Cannon in Nashville, which we have been to, in hopes that they may have something viable for me. No matter how nice she was, however, being removed from the trial was a disappointment.


Secondly, I met with my Oncologist, Dr. Harandi, today here in Louisville and we decided on a new course of action. His primary point of emphasis was for me to start getting some treatment that would work against the disease. He thought that the growth in the lung was the primary concern and that it was positive and not uncommon for disease in some areas to react well to treatment and other areas not to react at all. I inquired about another biopsy because of the variance in tumor response to the last treatment but he said it was common to treat all of the disease as one disease and not two, although he said he would take the idea to the tumor board.


After 6 cycles of treatment over the next three months, there would be a window of time to look in to more trials at other centers like MD Anderson and the Mayo clinic. So, I will be starting Irinotecan therapy within the week, depending on when the approval comes through. As you can imagine, I am not thrilled with starting chemotherapy again, but the once biweekly schedule and comparatively lower side effects make the necessity more tolerable. God willing, the drug will successfully combat the disease and I will see considerable reduction in tumor size.


As always, thanks for hanging with me through all of this. Your support continues to be incredible. There’s not a day that goes by that I am not reminded that I have an incredible support network behind me. Thanks for the prayers, mojo, vibes, and goodwill.


God bless,

Will, Katie, and Mack