Monday, July 28, 2008

Mr. Chemotherapy

Ken met with Dr. Shustov today to discuss the action plan as we move forward here. He will begin chemotherapy that includes two drugs, given twice a week for two weeks and then have the third week off. During the week off, he'll have his PET scans repeated to see if the cancer is shrinking or growing. If it is shrinking, they would do one more cycle but if it's not working,the would move in a different direction with a much stronger chemo.

Luckily, he can have these treatments done in Aberdeen starting on Thursday. On a not so lucky note, one of his brothers HLA typing (donor testing) came back not so good. He was a match in 7 out of 10 but the concern there is the likelihood of of the new cells attacking Ken's body is pretty high. It is possible to bypass that problem by using some drugs but they will wait to see how his other brother matches up. If that doesn't work, they will definitely move to the world wide donor bank to find the donor. This process will take up to 12 weeks as they have to find a match and then go find the person, retest them and also test for HIV, hepatitis, etc. I can just see it now... they literally have to track down some man in outer Syberia!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Precious, can't you do anything right? Would you please start co-operating with your doctors and stop being such a PILL!!
You are in my thoughts and prayers always.
Senorita