Today was very long but we got a lot done! After a couple weeks of frustration and worry, everything is coming together. God has heard our prayers and tonight, my family is tried but so humble to the steps and efforts from everyone to get us to the direction we need to go.
Here is the update: The insurance APPROVED the clinical trial. This was a HUGE relief as we would not be able to afford the treatments out of pocket. Dad will start the trial on Monday, July 14th. The trial that the drs finally went with will be less intense that we thought but will still take a lot of time. After looking at dad’s case, they feel this is a good study for him to be in. The first 2 weeks, he will be on only one chemo. The 1st week, he will be at MD Anderson (MDA) 5 days. The 2nd week will be 3 days. He will have another PET and CT scan on July 25th to just monitor things. The 3rd week, he will start taking two chemos – one at MDA and one at home. He will remain on the two chemos – going 3 times a week for a total of 6 weeks. Then we will retest. At this time, they expect some change. Then he will start over again with the same cycle as described above. The hours each day varies – from 1 hour to 8 hours of chemo. Once he goes on the 2nd chemo – it will be a pump which will pump chemo continuously the entire week. However, each day we will be there bright and early so we will be leaving the house anywhere from 5:30 -7am.
Additional things we found out today: The heart dr (from Tues) talked with the clinical trial dr and they figured out a med that will help regulate his afib and he can still be on the trial. They feel once his heart is regulated again, his breathing will get better. (FYI:He had to get off of his current afib meds due to it conflicting with the chemo so his heart rate/beats have been too fast causing him to be out of breath). Blood work came back and his thyroid level is a little elevated but not enough to go on meds. They will retest in a few weeks and compare. The heart dr said that with a lot of chemo, sometimes, the thyroid gland can start acting up which is why they tested dad. His white blood count (WBC) was up a little bit but they said that is most likely because he had his chest tube out on Tues and so the skin(and inside where the tube was) is healing. We also got most of the results from dad’s PET/CT scan that he had today. It showed the same areas that we expected to have cancer. We do not believe it has spread but will be getting the official record tomorrow (hopefully). Amen to that!
So what needs to be done before Monday:
Dad will be getting his feeding tube and a PIC in tomorrow (July 11th). We are hoping that the feeding tube will allow him to stop losing weight and maybe even gain weight. It will also stop the frustration dad has of throwing up almost every meal. If he is getting better nutrient, hopefully he will not only gain weight but get some energy – which he needs! He is now 187 pounds (losing over 70 pounds in recent months). The PIC will allow the chemo to enter the body. On July 21st, they will take the PIC out and put a chemo Port in (1st available opening). The Port will remain in until he is done with the trial. He will also have a small biopsy tomorrow to help the research part of the trial (optional but he would like to do it).
We got some long few weeks but I feel like this is the route God is taking us. I thank all of you for all of your support. It is without a doubt, so humbling for my family to have such love around us. Our faith is strong, our fight is stronger and God is beyond the healer of all of us. In case you did not see the video my brother posted, I am going to include the clip here. As a family, we were just looking at different videos. Adam happen to click onto this video and the end of the video – we were all crying especially due to the last few seconds – God was talking to us and saying Dennis you will be healed. When there seems to be no human cure – there is God’s cure. His healing is among us. Please take a moment and watch.