We had our first treatment at USC. It went very well and no issues from side effects. I was told I need to drink more water than I have been. Some of my blood work came back and didn't look so hot. They think that most of it was due to dehydration so I have been working on drinking a lot more water this last little while. The treatment was pretty simple for me. They wanted to partially sedate me to do this but I had eaten prior to and so they could not (the trial coordinator failed to mention this to me). Instead of sedation they did a lot of localized anesthesia to numb the skin and the area around the liver. This was probably the most painful but not really excruciating. Once it was numb I really didn't feel anything. They put a needle that seemed like it was 12" long into my abdomen and then into the liver where the lesion is. With that they infused a drug called IMO-2125 (about 4 ml) and then we were done. For the next 4 hours I had a bunch of blood tests and such so they could see how my system was responding to the drug.
We head back next week to do that same thing again plus an infusion of a drug called Ipilimumab. Side effects so far have been minimal, in fact I haven't felt any different after that first treatment. I just have to pee a lot more than I was previously (due to me being more focused on drinking lots of water). In fact after the treatment my wife and I went to a Dodgers game. We were staying close enough that we were able to walk to the stadium. It was a fun game and the Dodgers won.
Scheduling the travel is becoming harder and harder. Maybe it is not harder but rather tedious. Having to figure out schedules and times and everything is difficult. We are optimistic that all this effort will be worth it though. Now that we have all the dates of our appointments we will be able to schedule everything out and not have to do it all at once.
The financial side is a little stressful. Not that we can't do it but mostly because we have been told we would be reimbursed for many of the costs by the drug company but haven't seen any firm details of that yet. We are going into this trusting that the company will come through so we don't get stuck with the costs of all this. I guess that will all work itself out however it will.
Thanks for all the prayers and support. One thing that has been on my mind a lot is a scripture in the Book of Mormon. 2 Nephi 2:25 Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy. If you see me around and I tell you I am doing good its because I take this scripture to heart. I feel that whatever our trials, we are here to be happy. I encourage anyone to try this and have an attitude of happiness. It will do wonders for you.
#cancersucks #fightlikehell
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