This past Monday we met with Dr. Walter Urba. He was amazed with how quickly Mark responded to the Tafinlar and Mekinist! He is about to retire and in his entire career he has never seen anyone respond that quickly. Mark continues to feel better than he has in months! The pain is almost totally gone. The side effects are minimal, so Mark is back to life, almost as though there is nothing to be concerned about. I must say that it is much easier to deal with 'cancer' when there is no pain. We have accepted this new reality and are feeling much more at peace and hopeful.
The plan is to stay on Tafinlar and Mekinist for two months so the tumors will continue to shrink. We get to continue with our planned travel for the next 2 months. Another CT scan will be done in early June followed by a visit with Dr. Urba on the 10th. His current recommendation is to move to a protocol that he hopes will eradicate the cancer cells. We had hopes that Ketruda had done that. The new treatment will be infusions about every 3 weeks of Opdivo (like Ketruda but from a different manufacturer) along with Yervoy, which Mark has not used. In studies the combination has been more successful in durability than either of them individually. The down-side is that the combination is more toxic. When reading the possible side-effects if sounds awful, but then it was the same with the Ketruda, and Mark's side-effect were again minimal. So, there is no need to fret. We simply won't know how he reacts until he is on the treatments. They could be serious enough, though, that we will need to stay close to home until we see how he responds.
So...we are moving forward with faith, a great doctor, contingency plans and living life to the fullest right now!
