Home Tonight

We're still in New York but will be flying home tonight. Adrienne gets a Neulasta shot today and hopefully the Aleve/Claritan combo will eliminate the pain she had last time. Chemo went fine the last two days with the addition of Emend and a little Ativan. She actually feels pretty good this morning so we're going to have a nice lunch before going to the clinic and then the airport. Overall, we've seen much improvement: her arm isn't hurting any more, all her other pain is gone, her shortness of breath is gone, and her blood counts are normal. We are cautiously optimistic that the chemo is doing it's job and she can go back to school.

We talked about the next few months with Dr. O. He'd like her to have 4-6 cycles of the Bendamustine and then go directly on a trial, either Belinostat or SGN-35, if it's open. Given the recent aggressiveness of her disease, he wants her to go from one treatment to the next to the next. This is going to be tough, but if we can keep the side effects under control, it should be manageable. We've decided that Adrienne will fly home from school for the next few cycles of Bendamustine, which she'll get at Nevada Cancer Institute. That way, I can take care of her more easily in our home than from a hotel in Southern California.

Adrienne will have scans in a few weeks just to confirm that the Bendamustine is doing it's job. Dr. O thinks there's a good chance that she'll get a remission from this drug...wow, we haven't thought of that possibility for a long, long time.