Treatment Plan
Brain Tumor Treatment, Chemotherapy April 22nd, 2010
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After a long discussion at the Neuroscience Institute this morning, we have decided to go back to Avastin as the staple and use a rotating system of an additional drug month to month that will be switched out potentially – depending upon how I’m doing. For starters I will go back on Temodar. 21 days on, 7 days off with IV Avastin every other week. Temodar can be switched out for VP-16, Carboplatin or a host of other drugs. These are viable options that we think a) strike a good balance between quality of life and length of life, b) provide freedom in making choices to fold in other medications and c) hopefully provides us with a window of time to research and find a trial/treatment that is worthwhile pursuing. Even trials have drawbacks – the most significant of which to as a patient is the acceptance criteria. For me that would mean the trial would have to accept patients who have had:
- Recurrent GBM
- Previous use of Chemo agents (Temodar, vp-16, etc
- Previous Surgeries (including stereotactic radio-surgery such as Gamma Knife)
- KPI score +or> X
The problem with some trials is that you lose a lot of your lattitude, meaning you are locked into their guidelines so it’s not exactly all rosey there in the land of drug trials. Some only allow newly diagnosed, or that you cannot augment the trial with other drugs of your choosing for example.
I’ve been through 8 rounds of Temodar but I was on a 7 days on, 7 off regimen. I posted about this back in October, 2007 when I described how those first five days on Temodar went and the routine I developed. Because I’ll be on it a week longer each month, I will only be taking about half the dose. That will help in reducing side effects, mainly upset stomach. I should be able to handle this just fine. It wll be interesting to see if the cumulative effects of treatment come into play at all.
For now that’s it.
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Hi Mark, I’m “the other JoAnn”, friend of your Mom and Dad. The last few months I have had this thought in my mind for you, but just didn’t know how to share it. Now with your video I guess it’s the right time. You are so creative, so I’m not surprised to see the cards and video plans. I know myself, the greatest gift we can give our children is to introduce them to Jesus. I’m sure that is part of your reason for the videos. I just thought that it would be neat for you to create a special “Roadmap to Heaven” for your boys. To write it as a childrens story, but in the form of a map. I only have the idea, you can make it whatever you see. It can be there way of knowing where you have gone and how they can find their way to you and to Jesus in Heaven. I’ve been trying to do that in a different sort of way for my family, but my children are grown and I have the grandchildren who know Jesus and who I pray will also trust Him as Saviour and Lord. I’ve been blessed to see both my daughter Lori (who is also a friend of your Mom and Dad) and my son Jeremy live for the Lord. I have shared your blog on my Facebook profile and will continue to so that those without Christ can see that there is Hope even in the hard times.
Enjoy your visit with Mom and Dad, they love you so much and are so thankful to be on there way to your home.
Prayers and Blessings to you and your precious family,
JoAnn (the other one:0)