A Little Ray of Hope

After not hearing from my oncologist for almost a week, I decided to schedule the earliest possible appointment to speak with him face to face. This meant waking up at the crack of dawn to beat rush hour traffic for an 8:30am appointment. I would be his first appointment of the day. I showed up incredibly exhausted after spending the previous evening walking around DC (it wasn't even the original plan, but I wasn't going to pass up hanging out in the city with friends). Anyway, the nurse called me in, and after taking my vitals, she put me in the room to wait for what seemed like ages. I probably would have fallen asleep on the exam table if it wasn't completely upright in chair position.

Eventually my doctor came in and apologized for the delay in response. Apparently one of the oncologists at another clinic dropped out and he's been overworked (he normally works at two locations...now 3...and does hospital rounds). According to the nurse he's been in demand. However he said he's been able to look over everything on my case, and he has looked at other locations to see what they have to offer. Sadly the only other options are other immunotherapies as well as CAR T-cell projects. However he said since the immunotherapy I tried this past fall/winter didn't work at all, it significantly decreases my options in that form of treatment. He says my best option is doing the clinical trial at NIH in six months. This means I will be on some form of hormonal therapy (a shot in the tushie) until I resume my trial (assuming I still fit the protocol and am healthy enough)...fun.

However I'm not cutting treatment cold turkey...totally out of the question since this cancer is determined to see me dead. My doc offered me two options. There is one more chemo I can try which is similar to the chemo I did at the beginning of all this. It's called GVD and it's less toxic and symptoms are mild if any. I would go in once the first week, once the second week, and rest the third week...this is one cycle. I do two cycles and do a PET scan to see if it works. If it shows that it is shrinking any of the tumors, or stabilizing it at the very least, then I would resume this treatment until one month before my clinical trial. If not, then I would need to do radiation (something I've been trying to avoid). Not only do I have a serious phobia with radiation as it is (no idea why), it will also be every single day for 4 weeks...that's a lot in terms of money and energy. Another reason I'm not crazy about it is it will be covering a large area; meaning I could only do this option once. If for some reason I would need radiation down the line...I would no longer have that option besides pinpoint radiation. So I'm a bit hesitant on this idea and hope that the chemo works. Fingers crossed it does.

                                                                      Fourth time's the charm right???
All in all...I guess it's good news that I will definitely be trying for the clinical trial in the fall, and at least I won't be the guinea pig anymore as I'm sure they will do a study on someone in the meantime. I have the comfort and confidence in knowing I will most likely live another 6 months at the very least (knock on wood)...I just hope I can conserve whatever energy I have as fatigue is both a major side effect of both the chemo and radiation. But now I have a plan and I will definitely try to stick with it. Oh and should something go wrong, I now have my doctor's personal phone to call after hours if I have any questions or concerns. I feel a little more relaxed and have 6 months to prepare my mind for this clinical trial instead of feeling stressed and rushed into everything. I can finally breathe a little deeper.

                                               My deep breathing exercises...
So starting next week, I get my first shot on Tuesday and my first go at this chemo on Friday. The one take away from this I have is that there is still some hope for me yet. If all goes well, I can still do the trial. Sure it's a long ways away, but I'm not giving up the fight.