The New Team of Doctors

Loving the sunshine today! Our family is ready for the Spring weather. It's time for kids to get outside to enjoy the world. The boys ended their trimesters and were pretty happy with their exams and final grades. Time will tell how they did in the next week as we get their report cards.

Friday Tom went back to the Karmanos Cancer Center. Tom met with Dr. Ammar Sukari and his team that will be working with him going forward. Tom will be entering a Phase II trial with the drug Paxopanib. This drug has shown to be safe and has had positive results in slowing down Advanced Thyroid Cancer. Over the next few weeks it will be all paperwork & approval processes. Tom will head back to Detroit on Friday, April 2 to start treatments. The drug is in a pill form that Tom will take 2 times a day. His vitals will have to be monitored daily. I am sure he can find an EMT to handle that. For the first 30 days on the drug Tom will have to make several trips to Detroit until they are comfortable with how Tom reacts and how severe the side effects are on him. Once the doctors are comfortable, Tom will travel to Detroit every 28 days. He will spend the whole day getting CT's blood work, etc.

While Tom was making his trip, I received a call from his PCP. His latest blood work and CT scan results were in. Again there has been an increase in Calcitonin (1,206) and CEA (17.2, prior it was 12.6). The report from the CT scan shows no increase in size of the legions in the liver, spine and lungs. It continues to be the case that while Tom's cancer has spread, it is a very slow moving cancer. This combined with the new drug gives us hope.

Jeremiah 17:7-8 "But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and has made the Lord his hope and confidence. He is like a tree planted along a riverbank, with its roots reaching deep into the water - a tree not bothered by the heat nor worried by long months of drought. Its leaves stay green and it goes right on producing all its luscious fruit."