July 26, 2016 - Update on Brian
I thought I should give an update here so people are not wondering what is going on with Brian. Our oncologist has been on vacation and has just returned this week, so we have been waiting to hear what next steps we take. Brian did have an appointment to see a radiation oncologist last Friday and his recommendation was that Brian did not need radiation as he was not in any pain from the mass on his ribs. He showed us a picture of where the mass was located by printing off a CT image for us and you can just see a slight bump that is arising from his ribs right where the rib joins the spine. He said as long as that is not causing Brian any pain, there is no need to radiate and the bone strengthening drug, pamidronate, will take care of it along with the chemotherapy. He did ask us though if we had heard from Hamilton about a stem cell transplant and we said we haven't heard anything yet, but that made us hope that maybe he has been accepted and we just have to wait for a call. We will find out for sure though when we see our oncologist next.
Yesterday, we received a call from the hospital with our next appointments and Brian sees our oncologist on August 9 and he starts chemo two days later (August 11). He has two injections on that date - one for the pamidronate (bone strengthening drug) which is a two hour infusion and one for the bortezomib (Velcade) which takes about 20 minutes. He will have this bortezomib injection every Thursday for the next four weeks. The other two drugs of the chemo regimen (cyclophosphamide and dexamethasone) will be taken orally. This drug regimen is called CyBorD. This will be considered round one and I think he has at least three or four rounds but we will find out more when we see Dr. McCarron on the 9th.
We will also find out whether he is accepted for stem cell transplant at that time as well (we hope!) From our understanding, he has to have three rounds of chemo before stem cell transplant can be done anyway. So we are still keeping our fingers crossed that stem cell is in his future but if not, then we hope that he gets a good remission just from the chemotherapy alone.
Right now, Brian is feeling extremely well which I think is due to the dexamethasone (steroid) and it kind of makes him a bit hyper where he just can't seem to sit still. He has been out riding his bike almost every day and doing his regular exercises in the evening. He just wants to keep his body in as best shape it can be before the major chemo starts. He is eating like a horse and has actually gained 5 pounds since starting the dexamethasone, so that makes him feel good as well. To see him so well right now, it almost seems surreal that he actually has this cancer. Life almost seems normal and you just wish it could continue on this way, so we will take that for now and just enjoy the calm for the next couple of weeks until chemo starts and then be ready for the fight!
I will do a further update after we see our oncologist on August 9.
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