Tag: chemotherapy
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Clinical Trial Date Set
This past couple of weeks has been a busy time for us. George started his chemo infusions on Sept 25th and finished them up on Oct 3. He was also taking the oral chemo pill venetoclax. During this time, he had an echocardiogram and an electrocardiogram to clear him for the clinical trial. Because his…
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A Bridge to Transplant
After meeting with Dr. Lai, the research doctor, we got some clarification regarding the clinical trial/ CART-38 cells. After George completes this current round of chemotherapy, he will undergo a bone marrow biopsy (the week of Sept 12). If he has less than 5% blasts, then he will be eligible to go directly to transplant,…
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Chemo infusions complete…
For seven days, we braved the traffic and drove to and from Philadelphia for George’s infusions of Vidaza. He finished his last infusion yesterday and now he will continue taking the oral chemo, Venclexta until July 30th. For the first time, George was nauseated and had dry heaves and vomiting after his treatment. This happened…
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BMT #2 Scheduled for July
But when in July? We aren’t sure yet. All I can say at this point is mid-July. Last weekend, Dr. Loren (oncologist) and Dr. Heyman (pulmonologist) both happened to be working and consulted with each other about George. Dr. Loren asked Dr. Heyman if she could possibly taper George off the Prediosone faster so that…
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It’s been a minute…
Well, I haven’t posted anything in a while because honestly, we have just been in what seems like a holding pattern until George gets his second bone marrow transplant in July. But, now that may be delayed. George started his chemo rounds in February and has now undergone 4 cycles. The last two were with…
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New Chemo
George started his next round of chemotherapy on Monday, April 17. Because the doctors suspected that the lung issues that landed him in the hospital were caused by the chemo med Vidaza that George had been given before, he was given a new drug this time. The new drug is called Dacogen (decitabine). It’s a…
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He’s Home!
After 9 nights in the hospital, George was finally released yesterday! The doctors ran exhaustive tests and cultures and everything came back negative (and they tested for A LOT). No pneumocystis pneumonia (whew!). That left them with the conclusion that George’s lung issues were caused by the chemotherapy drug Vidaza that he had been receiving…
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Making progress!
Today marks one week since George was admitted to the hospital. He has had some tough days at the beginning where he was out of breath walking to the bathroom, coughing fits that brought him to tears and retching, and complete frustration that every day was no better than the last. But a couple of…
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Back in the Hospital with Pneumonia
After more than a week of coughing without ceasing to the point of gagging and retching, George finally decided something needs to be done NOW. Of course, we had messaged his team at UPenn and they didn’t seem particularly concerned. Had they seen George’s extreme exhaustion, his inability to walk to the front door or…
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New Mutations and a Broken Chromosome
Well, this is not what I thought I would be writing about 208 days after George’s bone marrow transplant. We are supposed to be on the other side of this disease. But his engraftment has been struggling and when we saw Dr. Loren on January 26th, we got some surprising news. George’s early January appointment…
Diagnosis: Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). A Journey 