Balancing Act

Adrienne is feeling really good right now, better than she has in months. As has been the case for the last few years, we need to balance her life and how she feels with these treatments and clinical trials. In many ways, we're very lucky that she has a relatively slow growing cancer and that we have the luxury of time to figure out the next best steps and to try more than one drug. When she's highly symptomatic, as she was last fall, we feel the need to get something going as quickly as we can while trying not to do too much damage, since an infection or bone marrow damage could be catastrophic to her.

Given this window we have in her health and a wide open summer, I've been researching a number of options including contacting MD Anderson. After a week and a half of talking with staff and obtaining records, Dr. Younes, their Hodgkin's researcher, called and we talked for about an hour. We went through all the options at City of Hope plus the options available at MD Anderson. He was honest in saying that there's no right answer and no one knows what will work for Adrienne. The trials at City of Hope seem very promising in the lab, and the best news is, the drug that's only been available at MD Anderson may be coming to the Nevada Cancer Center soon, so of course, I have a call in to them too.

It seems that my asking for records and letting COH know that we're looking at other options got them busy and the AKT trial is now approved. Tentatively, Adrienne will start next week. In the meantime, we're off to Seattle to see Joyce. She's feeling relatively well and looking forward to our visit, along with a potluck lunch at the house with the whole family, millions of cousins and all, which I'm sure will be bittersweet.