Home and Some GOOD NEWS

Just when Bobby was having about as much fun as he could handle, he got released from the hospital late Friday.  We had consulted with specialists, and had tests which had not produced any new clues.  The rash had mostly subsided, and we got to the point of thinking that sleeping in his own bed and resting at home was going to be the best medicine, especially since all the meds he was on could be given orally.  Of course, it is better being home, but Bobby is still feeling pretty rough, really wiped out. He compares it to the recuperation after IL-2, which was quite exhausting. Trip and Michael came home for the weekend, and have been a huge help with some gardening and household projects. 

We are scheduled to see Dr Keller on Tuesday for his scheduled chemo. Jury's still out on whether that treatment will happen.  His blood pressure is still running high (they changed all his BP meds over the past week), and that may be a show stopper.  Also, I'm not sure if he can tolerate the fatigue that normally comes with his chemo dose.  We'll see.

Now to the GOOD NEWS. The clinical trial nurse came by Friday morning to check on Bobby and after discussing the current situation, she mentioned that the results of the CT Scan (which had been previously scheduled this week to measure his progress on the trial) were already in.  Naturally, we quizzed her about the results and she hedged saying, "well, it's hard for me to say, you'll have to talk to Dr Keller," which sounded like code for "the doctor gets to deliver bad news, not me."  So I flippantly asked her to tell Dr Keller that good news had been in short supply lately, so if it so happened that it was a good report, we'd love to hear it sooner rather than later.  I had honestly forgot that I'd said that when Dr Keller popped in the room a couple of hours later, waving some papers and declaring, "it's looking good!"  All the nodules we are tracking (3 in the lungs, 1 in the adrenal) had shrunk.  Total regression was 24%!! We'll take it.  This means the larger dose of the VEGF Trap has been effective, whereas the smaller dose, which resulted in a 20% growth, was not.  So things are definitely moving in the right direction in that regard!  Talk about a nice dose of encouragement, after a very discouraging week!

Thanks again for checking on us.  Love, Juli