Yesterday was our 6 week check up with Dr. Urba. Since Mark is doing so incredibly well the
doctor doesn’t think that we need to hurry to start the Yervoy. We might as well enjoy our time of Mark
feeling so good!
The protocol for Yervoy (ipilimumab) is a 90 minute
outpatient intravenous injection every 3 weeks with a total of 4 injections. We had thought that he would start the Yervoy
in a few weeks, taking one or two doses before our company trip the end of
April and the rest after, but we learned yesterday that the side effects can be
very serious. We need to be close to good medical facilities during the
duration of the treatment.
We had lots of questions, i.e. “Does the drug work if there
are no tumors? Is it better to wait until they start to grow?” Dr. Urba told us that there are NO answers to
these questions. This is the ART of
medicine because we are on the cutting edge.
There is no real science yet until more research is done - which is in
progress. He did indicate that side
effects tend to be worse with less tumor activity which gives us another reason
to postpone starting the drug. Also, if
there is some tumor activity it is possible to determine if the drug is
working.
Of course, we are anxious to know if any tumors are growing
so Dr. Urba ordered a chest X-ray. It’s
the least invasive. PET and CT scans
cannot be done so often. Mark can get the
X-ray whenever we are ready. Since it’s
only been 5 weeks since the PET scan we feel inclined to wait at least a few
weeks before we expose him to more radiation.
Also, we want to move it closer to the trip. If tumors show up we will decide whether to start
the drug right away or wait until right after the trip. It depends on their
size and rate of growth. If there are no
tumors we will rejoice once again!
So for now we are doing nothing medically, but we can enjoy
every minute we have together, and we are doing just that!
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