Here we go again

Cleve spoke to DR. Hwu today and the solution that she has come up with is to get Cleve in to see Dr. Ross for surgery to de-bulk the tumor and then in the same visit, a few days later Cleve will start bio-chemotherapy as was planned in early February. After the surgery the tumor will be harvested for TIL cells again and hopefully they won't die upon thawing this time. This would enable him, I THINK, to be a part of the study he was supposed to be in, in the first place. It sounds like this would be happening around mid to end of april, depending on how quick we can get scheduled. Keep your fingers crossed.... and I'll keep you posted, as usual.

March Update

Well folks, its been a busy month. At the beginning of the month, Cleve went down to Stanford for a brain MRI and appointment with Dr. Gibbs. The scan showed that the eight sights were either shrunk or gone. I'm not sure how many disappeared, but I would imagine they were the smaller of the eight. Cleve had been feeling pretty good at the beginning of the month. Towards the middle he started feeling aches under his right arm again, his left shoulder and one of his knees, and very very tired this last week.

Today, Cleve had a PET scan which showed that the sight in his sacrum is still relatively quiet and no other "brand new" sights, however his right shoulder is very active again. Judging from the scan and what Cleve has told me it sounds like the tumor is surrounding his shoulder; to the rear, front and under his arm. In his last scan the tumor appeared a very light grey color, in this scan it is dark black. So I guess we will be in touch with Dr. Hwu in Houston to see where we go from here. Biochemotherapy? Excision and try to harvest TIL cells again? We'll have to wait and see. We seem to be following a pattern of good scan bad scan every two months. The tumor just seems to adapt to the medications so easily. We see good response with a new medication, but less than two months later, the cancer learns how to thrive again. Sneaky, stupid cancer. I'll keep every one posted when we figure out what treatment option we are going with. Until then...