Honing In

Today, I felt, was a very productive day. We met with Dr. A for a follow-up to discuss options going forward. We've honed in tightly on three viable options on the c-met inhibitor and I feel really good about each of them. Over the last few weeks I've been emailing Dr. A and Mayo Clinic and we've managed to subtract out a few trials from our initial list and even added added a new option today.

Option 1: Clinical Trial in Detroit
This trial seems very promising but the downside is it involves a lot of travel (1-2 times a week for the first 6 weeks). We're still trying to figure out how to do this.

Option 2: Xalkori
Xalkori is an FDA approved drug that targets tumors with C-MET and/or ALK proteins. Right now, it's only approved for lung cancer unfortunately. But it's on the market and I think it will greatly help mom since she has a high expression of the c-met protein in her tumors. The next few days, Dr. A and I are teaming up to gather as much research as we can to make a case for it with gastric cancer so mom can be prescribed the drug. He will be drafting a letter of medical necessity. Cross your fingers!

Option 3: Clinical Trial at Mayo Clinic
This is completely new and I don't have all the details yet. All I know is there's a new c-met trial at Mayo but are only letting in patients with kidney cancer. Dr. D at Mayo will see what she can do to admit mom into this trial.

So, we've made some solid progress today. It's not as fast as I'd like but it is what it is. I'm just thankful to have options at hand and the cancer is stable. Not a lot of people even get that. We went ahead with chemo today. It's now officially round 8, session 1. Mom's count was also good too which I was happy about. Her WBC was 4.7 and HGB was 9.2. A lot better than last week when they were 1.7 and 8.3, respectively.

I can't say this enough, but I am so thankful for the medical team ( I call them my rock star team) that we are working with. It's so important to have that peace of mind that they have your best interests at heart and also listen to you when you bring ideas to the table. I often wonder if Dr. A gets tired of me for pushing so much but today he shook my hand and thanked me profusely for all that I am doing. He's even mentioned me in the medical summary letters he drafts after each meeting and has complimented me as a very thoughtful and useful source. It feels good to know that what I am doing is making a difference in their eyes.