CHEMO &Keytruda
Mike and I have been in California since Monday, Sept. 9th. We stayed in Santa Monica Monday, because Mike had an appointment with Dr. Kesari, a Neuro-oncologist, early Tuesday morning. We were so impressed with the doctor and all of the staff at St. John/Providence Medical Center. Dr. Kesari concurred with Mayo on using full dose chemo (Carboplatin and Pemetrexed) along with Keytruda in order to cross the blood brain barrier and attack the brain Mets.
We were hoping to be able to do IPT Fractionated Chemo at Cancer Center for Healing, but obviously want to do what is best to give Mike a long life so we cancelled the fractionated/low dose chemo that was scheduled for later Tuesday morning. Dr. K also thought Mike should get a spinal tap to make sure there are no cancer cells in his spinal fluid, so we scheduled that for next Tuesday at Providence.
We then went for a walk on the Santa Monica beach/pier, saw muscle beach, ate lunch at one of our favorite places “Flower Child”, then got to our next hotel in Irvine. We went to Cancer Center For Healing on Wednesday for Mike to get a high dose Vitamin C IV and a meeting with Dr. Gama to discuss Dr. Kesari’s recommendations. We also talked about other healing therapies and supplements to help Mike during treatment. She agreed with Dr. Kesari about using full dose Chemo, so we feel good that all three Doctors agree with the plan going forward. We had to wait for insurance approval for the Chemo, which finally happened yesterday, so they tried to schedule starting the Chemo regimen today because everybody agrees he needs to start asap, but couldn’t due to medication availability as well as staffing issues.
Mike’s patient advocate called this morning while we were at CC4H getting more IV Vitamin C and Artusenate to say they got his first treatment set up for Monday. We are nervous to start the next step on this cancer journey, but are trusting that it is God’s plan! After the first treatment here in CA, Mike will have the rest of his treatments at Mayo and the infusions will be once every three weeks. We will come back to CA to see Dr. Kesari after 6 weeks for imaging and for his guidance. We would appreciate prayers that the treatments do not cause any major issues and that they work to shrink all tumors! Also pray that the spinal fluid is free from any cancer cells and that it goes flawlessly! Thank you for your thoughts and prayers!
Last night as we sat in our hotel thinking about the “what if’s” I put on the song “Spirit Lead Me” by Influence Music, because I thought we needed a reminder that we need to let His spirit lead and direct us… we need to trust God when he says “no” that it’s for our best, when He says “be still” we need to wait, when He says “yes” we need to dive in! I don’t know about you, but we sometimes try so hard to make things happen the way we think they should, when we really just need to pray about it and listen to Him… trust Him!
This journey is getting harder and harder but it is also teaching us so much! We definitely aren’t perfect but, we are working to love unconditionally, forgive freely, be present always, don’t do-just be, and to never give up!
Love,
Paula
