July 28, 2023
Everyone should be glad to know that I did have a summer vacation this year. It was spent sleeping in my own bed, cooking (some) of my own meals, and generally enjoying my own home. Funny story, I even went to the zoo. See elephant photographic evidence. (Yes, it was hot. Yes, I was super tired walking uphill. But we saw pandas and seals and an ostrich and it was mostly outside!) It’s over now and I’m back in the hospital, but I’m positive about the current steps forward.
David and I met with the Doctor on Monday and the plan is to try the (next) chemo regimen called FLAG-IDA. I’m not going to tell you what all those letters mean because I can’t remember or spell them properly, but it’s a chemo “cocktail” of 5 different drugs. Two of the same I’ve had, and three new ones. The doc gave us a scientific paper about the treatment, and it seems promising. Sobering, but promising for those for whom the standard treatment hasn’t worked.
The bad news is that they will give me the chemo in the hospital, and I should expect to be here in the hospital for another month (the same story of giving the chemo, watching the blood numbers drop, and then watching them rise to acceptable levels, which they expect to take 4 weeks or so). Boo. But, I’ve done it before, and I can do it again.
Along with the treatment plan, the Doctor did another bone marrow biopsy on Monday. We got the results Thursday evening, and the bad blastocyst cell count actually went down – for the first time! This is great news. It means that the chemo I took did work, and I did respond, just not enough of a response and perhaps not on their timeline. It showed a significant reduction to 20% blasts, but I need to be below 5% to advance to the bone marrow transplant phase.
My elephant friend and I think this is really great.
That sounds like great news! Praying the new chemo takes out another 15 to 20 % of the blasts.
Good news :)