Next Steps

Hello all. We have met with the docs and now have our plan for the next two months. First, Pam gets next week off! No treatments, no hospital, a week to feel a bit normal!!! Then we start 4 weeks of radiation to get rid of the cancer in the neck and chest. After 4 weeks we will scan and them do the high dose of Chemo. and the stem cell transplant. That will hopefully give us what we have been looking for since August, a clean scan!! This is obviously a very quick overview of what lies ahead, but enough to keep you in the loop for now. I will update again next week. Thanks again for everyones help and thoughts, we really appreciate it!
Troy.

Not what we were hoping to hear

We did not get the news that we wanted this afternoon. The PET Scan results showed that the two rounds of ICE chemo. treatment have not been effective. The spots in the neck and chest are still showing up and have increased in size a little bit. We will now wait to hear from our doctors what the next plan of treatment is. We will keep you all posted as soon as we know anything new. For now we continue with the stem cell harvesting tomorrow morning so they will be available when/if needed in the future. Thanks for all your prayers and thoughts.
Troy and Pam.

PET Scan and T- Cell Harvesting!

Hello everyone I am going to try and update you as much as I can as things are somewhat difficult to follow. First the big stuff: PET Scan was done today (Monday, Feb. 19) we are looking for PET Negative everyone so start the vibes flowing! We will get the results tomorrow afternoon so that is obviously on our minds every second right now. The second big thing is the initiation of the stem cell harvest. Pam has been getting a shot of Neupogen, a very expensive drug,($3,800 for 8ml, thanks BC/BS!) that stimulates the growth of the T-cells for the last 10 days. We went in on Sunday and did the first round of blood circulation to get some of the cells. Very high tech. Basically it is just like dialysis, and takes place in the same lab. Pam gets hooked up to the machine for 5 hours, with one tube drawing blood out and the other tube putting it back in. The machine spins it and separates blood platelets to get the T-Cells. (very simple version of what is really happening) We need 5 million! On the first try we got .35 not what we were looking for :(. It turns out that the blood counts were off and she probably should not have even been hooked up yesterday. We go back up for blood counts every day and will wait for the results. If they counts are good enough we go upstairs to good old Shep 4 to harvest again. It will probably take two more times at the minimum. That is what we will be doing most of this week.
The results of the PET Scan will tell us the next steps. Negative means get ready for the High Dose of Chemo. and the Stem Cell transplant. Positive (which we are sure will not happen :) means another round of ICE treatment and wait for a PET scan again.
Pam continues to be a trooper and is so tough! I am amazed every day of not only her strength, but of the other patients we have been meeting. The emotional ups and downs continue, as expected, but good news tomorrow will help that a great deal, so stay tuned for the news. I will update this again tomorrow as soon as I can to let you know what we find out.
Troy.

Moving Forward

Hello everyone. I will try and explain things the best that I can in terms of what lies ahead for the next 8 weeks or so. We have met with Dr. Unger and he explained the treatment protocol for our situation. Pam is to have another chemo. treatment this week (Feb. 6th she goes in to the hospital for 3 days again). After this treatment she will receive a shot of something called Nupegin? (sp) that will stimulate the production of T-cells. They will wait a few days and watch for them to increase in the blood. When they do, Pam will go to the hospital and be hooked up to a machine that acts a bit like dialysis only it will filter these T-cells from her blood so they can freeze them for later use (you will understand why in a bit). This is refered to as the stem cell harvest. She will then continue to recover this round of chemo. and in a couple of weeks get another PET scan to see if it has indeed removed all the cancer. Regardless of the results, she will soon after (1st week of March maybe) be getting the high dose of chemotherapy. This will reduce her white blood cell count to Zero. At that time they will transplant her T-cells back to her to give her some protection for the few weeks it will take to start building them up again. It will be a few months before she starts to feel a bit more normal. The goal of all of this is that the cancer will be gone and we can start doing periodic scans to check that it stays away.
Obviously there are quite a few things that can become problematic with the whole process that I just tried to explain, but they are too many to list for everyone. The big ones are fever, or infection while white blood cell counts are low. Pam will either be in the hospital for 2-3 weeks during this time, or be staying in Burlington close to the hospital (we live about 20 min too far away).
We went to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston last week for a consult. The doctors that we met with were very pleased with our treatment plans and what has been done so far. They did not feel that Pam needed to be in Boston for her further treatments, so we are going to proceed up here.
We once again would like to thank you all for your amazing support and efforts. A special thanks to Jeff and Stan for putting together the hoop night at CVU, very class act. Your thoughts, efforts, and actions do not go unnoticed! We love them, they help us through the dark days!
That being said, the next two months are going to be very difficult on Pam and the boys. She will be spending quite a bit of time in the hospital and they will be missing their mommy. We are going to do the best we can to keep there life normal but are prepared for the wheels to fall off. It will be a challenge and we will continue to need all of your support. I wish we could just fast forward to May and have it all over! Instead we will be having our own "March Madness".
Once again thank you all for everything,
Troy and Pam.