Day 216, Year 11: Simply Amazing
Date: Wednesday, May 25, 2016
Weather: Sunny and Hot, High 88 degrees F in Boston, 75 in Falmouth
Location: At Home with the Goldstones, East Falmouth, MA
Last night I read Dr. Seuss’s “The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins” to Ollie at bedtime. Today when we met with Dr. Kwak to review Mark’s latest CT scan results, I felt like I was hearing the story of “The Many Lives of Mark Daniel Handley.” With the help of a wonderful oncologist, another biologic (Cetuximab), and the trial drug INC280, Mark’s cancer is once again receding. Today Dr. Kwak brought up the computer images from his scan just before the trial began side by side with the images from the current scan to show us the differences. And as she explained what we were seeing, she kept saying, “This is just simply amazing.” And it was amazing. We looked at the abdominal area, the liver, the lungs, and in all those places there are significant reductions in the size of tumors. In some areas like the liver, nothing is visible. That doesn’t mean the cancer isn’t there; it is just too small to see. But when you have cancer that has metastasized throughout various organs, seeing them “go away”, even temporarily, is a GLORIOUS gift. In addition to this good news, Mark made it through his third day totally free of nausea, has gained four pounds since last Wednesday, has good blood counts, and is feeling better than he has since the beginning of this trial. Some of this appears to be due to the steroid that we added this weekend. Unfortunately, Dr. Kwak reminded us that the steroid cannot be used continuously, but she agreed that for now, we should stick with this current plan. It took us eight weeks of experimenting to get to a plan that works for Mark, so she agrees that he deserves to enjoy this for a while longer before we change anything.
After meeting with Dr. Kwak, Mark had his weekly infusion. I’m not sure I have mentioned that on many of our Wednesdays at Mass General, Mark sits in a chair with a gorgeous view of the Charles River. If you have to go through chemo infusions, it sure helps to have such a view.
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| 160525 Day 216 Cape Cod, USA–Mark at MGH |
I want to give a special thanks here to our daughter Heather who helped us come up with the current schedule. As we drove to Lowell on Sunday, we talked through the timing of taking the various drugs and settled on the current schedule that is working so well. In addition, we have gotten wonderful suggestions from our son Justin, our daughter-in-law Jo, my niece Candi, our friends Jean Mason (a cancer patient) from West Virginia and Jane Woodin (a nurse) from here on the Cape, Heather and Jed’s next door neighbor Melissa Keefe (a nurse), and our good friends Ed (a cancer patient) and Lynn Kirwin. And we know we have the full support of each and every one of you that is reading this log. Some of you are family, some of you are friends, and some of you are people we have never met but feel as though we have known you for years. And then there is the team of top-notch health professionals who work with Mark at Mass General Hospital and the guidance I get from the ‘food revolution’ folks out there online and in books. And if I have forgotten anyone, please forgive. I will say it once again, “It takes a village.” And all of you are part of that village.
