First Treatment Completed

So I just finished my first treatment with the clinical trial.  The treatment seemed to be very similar to the last trial I did.  This one was a little more work though because they wanted a biopsy too.  Started this treatment with a bunch of blood draws on Tuesday.  Then Wednesday morning I went in a have a bunch more blood.  Meet with doctor Grossman which started the treatment.  After meeting with the Dr. I went and got the infusion of Pembro/Keytruda.  This process takes about an hour.  When you get there they have to order the drug from the pharmacy so a little bit of it is waiting.  They have a nice sitting area with TV’s at all the infusion stations.  There is about 32 infusion stations at Huntsman.  It always amazes me how busy that place is.  The infusion started about 9:00 and were out of there about 10:30.  We went up and got checked into the room we were going to stay in then they took me to interventional radiology.  Here they pretty much knocked me out.  They did a biopsy and injected the clinical drug using aCT for guidance and to make sure they did it in the right place.  I was probably only there an hour or so and then back up to my room.  The coordination from all the doctors was great.  When we did a clinical trial at USC we would wait for hours on end to go from one stage to the next.  At Huntsman it was one thing after the other which was great.  The reason I stayed over night was so they could drain all my blood and save all my pee too.  It seemed like they were drawing blood every couple of hours.  I didn’t realize I could spare so much.  I felt pretty good until later that night.  I got flu like symptoms like the chills, headache and body aches.  This was expected for the most part.  When we got home on Thursday I was extremely tired and didn’t have much energy.  That has been pretty typical of a treatment.  I usually sleep a lot in the days that follow a treatment.  This morning I woke up feeling pretty good.  I will go to work and try to have a normal day but I am sure fatigue will slip in later today.

Below is a timeline of my next steps:

Week 1 Infusion, Injection and biopsy (completed)
Week 2 injection
Week 3 break
Week 4 infusion and injection
Week 5 injection
Week 6 break
Repeat

From my understanding I shouldn’t have to stay in the hospital again.  Some days will be longer than others depending on the blood work that needs to be done.

MK-1454-001

We are now on track to to start the next trial drug on September 25th.  I have some scans tomorrow for a baseline of the disease and a biopsy on Tuesday so they can compare it to another later on in the trial.  This will probably be a little more intensive treatment then I am used to.  On Wednesday the 25th, I will go in first thing in the morning to Huntsman where I will visit with the doctors and they will take some blood.  After that then I will go to the interventional radiologist where the Dr. will inject the trial drug MK1454 directly into the tumor in my liver.  After that, I will be given a dose of Pembro (this is the drug I was first put on several years ago).  This first time I get the pleasure of staying in the hospital overnight for monitoring.  Should be in the hospital all day Wednesday and leaving Thursday morning.  The injections I get will happen twice out of every 3 weeks, fortunately all of this is done at Huntsman on the hill.  I will also get Pembro every 3 weeks.  The hope with this trial is that we get a receptor to light up so that my immune system can see the cancer cells.  I like the new doctor I have been seeing.  Dr. Grossman seems to be much more positive about the treatments and the future prospects.  Below are a couple of articles on MK-1454

https://investors.merck.com/news/press-release-details/2018/First-Presentation-of-Early-Data-for-Mercks-Investigational-STING-Agonist-MK-1454-in-Patients-with-Advanced-Solid-Tumors-or-Lymphomas-at-ESMO-2018-Congress/default.aspx

https://lymphomanewstoday.com/2018/11/05/mk-1454-keytruda-combo-shows-promise-interim-phase-1-data-shows/

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/anie.201707816%4010.1002/%28ISSN%291521-3773.merck_350

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03010176

The hunting seasons are upon us and I am sure that this will cause some problems with that.  I was supposed to go muzzle loader hunting next week but that will have to be postponed.  Easton is hunting ducks this weekend for the youth hunt and then has a couple of deer tags as well.  This is a fun time of year.  I already have 1 pheasant hunting trip planned for the first week in October, hopefully this doesn't screw that one up as well.