Well time flies and it has been 30 days since Diana started the Clinical Trial using the new drug RAD001. Lots has happened in the past 30 days. The sale of Diana;s company was completed on October 19. I am committed to spending the next thirty days assisting the buyer. Diana and I went to the closing in the lawyer’s office. Diana signed all the documents. Around noon we went back to her office to notify the employees of the transaction and introduce the new owner. All went well.
One of our best friend’s sons was getting married on November 12 in Boston. We had made plans to attend – flying up on Thursday November 10 and returning home on Sunday. We had purchased our airline tickets and made hotel reservations but we were not sure if we would go. The final decision would be dependent upon how Diana felt at that time and her schedule at MD Anderson. Her schedule allowed us to fit the trip in, however, Diana was still mentally and physically stressed by the tumor growth determined at our last MD Anderson visit. She was also physically and mentally fatigued. After much discussion, Diana decided to make the trip to Boston. Even though we were there for only a short time, we saw many friends and had a good time. The weather was cold – we stayed at the Hilton in Back Bay and walked on Newbury Street – one of Diana’s favorite streets for shopping. It was a great wedding. A trolley car picked us up and took us to the church. After the ceremony, the trolley took us to the reception at The Old Meeting House in Boston. Other than going to the wedding and reception, most of our time was spent resting in our hotel room.
We arrived home on Sunday and pronto – it was time for a checkup in Houston at MD Anderson Clinic. Upon arriving in Houston on Monday, Diana had her normal blood tests and chest x-ray. In addition she also had a CT Scan and a PET scan. Diana also had a PET scan prior to starting the Clinical trial – therefore we would get an update on that test also during our visit.
On Wednesday Nov. 18 we met with Dr. Blumenschein. He gave us some good news and some not so good news. The lesion in Diana’s lung had shrunk – it has previously grown a little during the 2 months (August & September) that Diana did not have any medication. That was the good news. However, the lesion on her liver showed growth of a few millimeters. The PET Scan also showed two new spots on Diana’s spine. Dr. Blumenschein made an instant decision to stop the Clinical Trial medication – RAD001 – and had Diana start taking a new recently approved FDA drug – Tarceva. Again, it is an oral pill taken once per day. Dr. Blumenschein was pleased with how Diana looked and felt overall, but he was not happy with the liver lesion growth even though it was very minimal.
We are now back in Frisco. Diana has been taking Tarceva for a few days now. So far, no visible side effects which is good. She appears to be losing some of the muscle pain which could mean the pain was coming from the drug RAD001 reaction. It is still very early and time will tell if the muscle pain goes away. Otherwise, she is quite active.
We are scheduled to be back in Houston for tests and a check up with Dr. Blumenschein starting on December 12.
Please note my change of email address. We are getting so much spam on the old addresses that Diana and I have changed our email addresses. We have tried to filter out the spam but also lose good email in the process. So please correspond to our new email address – Diana’s is dgrace@herringpond.com. Since we sold Diana’s company, we would also be losing access to the domain name used in our email addresses. Please make the change.
Thanks for your prayers and support. Have a Happy Thanksgiving Holiday. We are going to enjoy ours at home. It has been a busy and very active month for Diana. We will both enjoy the rest at home – especially since we no longer have to go to her office to catch up on work. We will both relax.