New Treatment

What a day!!! That’s all I can say about yesterday. I was stressed to the max! I don’t know why I do this to myself but it just seemed like everything was not going right. So my day started bright and early at 3:30 am. You know it’s early when your dogs look at you like your crazy because you turn the light on and disturb their sleep LOL. I got to the hospital yesterday around 9:30. My appointment wasn’t until 11am but I thought if I got there early I would get in early because I was expecting to just talk to my doctor and the lady that’s over the clinical trials. WRONG!!! I sat there until noon before I got called back. The waiting area was so packed!! I have never seen it like that before. I talk to Dr. Kim about the Clinical Trial he wants me to do. First of all before you read what I’m about to write and think “Why in the world is she participating in a clinical trial??” let me explain why. I have done everything there is to do that is an available treatment for Melanoma. Remember there is NO cure for Melanoma. So now all I have left to try is the trials. Some of the trials that are out there have proven to work. Like the Plexxikon trial they are wanting me to do. There is another patient similar to me except her tumors were much larger and now after she did the Plexxikon trial there are no signs of any cancer on her lungs AWSOME huh!! This is why all the treatments I will do in the future will be trials. So let me explain the one I’m about to participate in. It’s called the AZD6244 trial (you can do a search on it and learn more). There will be two groups. One group will get the AZD pill plus Chemo. The other group will get a Placebo plus Chemo. We will be drawn at random and will not know which group we are in. So on day one I will start the pills (3 pills twice a day) and get a round of chemo. I will go home with the pills and continue taking them daily. 21 days later I will go back for another round of chemo. This goes on for 8 rounds. So it’s chemo every 21 days and taking the pills every day (3 twice a day). For the first 6 weeks I will have to fly to Houston every week for a check up. I wish we were closer to Houston. Airfare has gone up and is probably going to continue to go up since the holidays are coming up. But I have to do what I have to do to get better. Side effects are nausea, fatigue, lower blood count (which means I will be at an even higher risk of catching something and getting sick). Some of the side affects of the pill are more sensitive to the sun, my eyes may become more sensitive to light and a rash. They said the rash usually shows up on the face. They give a prescription for a cream to help with it. So this may sound funny but let’s pray that I get a rash! That means I know I got the actual AZD pill and not the placebo. The clinical trial doctor said that some of the patients that got the AZD pill did not get a rash. So the way you look at it, I will have no clue if I got the actual AZD pill unless I DO get a rash. Hope I didn’t confuse everyone. There’s so much to it I had to read over the information so many times to just understand it. David and I will travel to Houston next week. I have a slew of appointments. They start early Tuesday and go until Thursday afternoon. Makes me tired just thinking about it. I’ve also decided to “donate” some of my tissue and blood for further clinical testing. I have several spots that have popped up and they want to remove a couple of them to keep for testing. Hey if I can help them by donating a little tissue and blood to help the researchers then why wouldn’t I do it? So that’s the plan for right now. I’m ready to get started again kicking this things butt!! Thanks again to everyone for all the prayers. Everyone’s support has been awesome and I couldn’t ask for anything better.