Chris, Angie, Brooke and Samantha at the front door of our new home.

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Thurs 7/17 - We have gotten Chris' schedule for treatment. He starts the test dose of Bexxar one week from today. There are two scans and then he receives the dose. That will take place on the July 31st.

Though still dealing with pain, Chris had been feeling energetic enough to go into work for a few hours this week. Today, it seems to be catching up to him. He has been very fatigued today; deciding to stay home.

Fri 7/25 - Chris received his test dose of Bexxar yesterday. Time consuming, but uneventful really. When asked if Chris could expect any relief with this test dose, the radiologist said "it would be quite interesting" to see if he did, but not to expect any. Contrary to what a friend of ours read while doing some research. So our roller coaster ride goes. While we are not expecting any beneficial effects from this test dose, we'd sure welcome any. Chris' pain has been getting worse and he's soaking the bed with sweat every night.

There will be two scans before Chris gets the therapeutic dose of Bexxar; one Monday and another on Wednesday. Thursday he gets the dose of Bexxar. His blood counts are expected to drop. Because he's has such low counts already, I would expect that more transfusions will be necessary. He will be radioactive for a couple weeks after the big dose on Wednesday. Close prolonged exposure to him is to be avoided. Not that we can't hug him. (He will still get lots of hugs.) Just that sitting next to him in a movie theater or on a long car ride is not a good idea.

Tues 7/29 -Chris could not get over having mouse antibodies running around inside of him. I started to call them the Mouse Army, and we've been having fun visualizing the "Mouse Army" on the attack. Chris still is in a good amount of discomfort. The test dose really hasn't given him any relief. The results of the scan yesterday went well. His physicist called (yes, a physicist. Pretty impressive, eh?) to let him know he's "within range". There is one more scan tomorrow. These scans are to help determine how fast the test dose leaves the body. The size of the therapeutic dose is based on the results. I'm probably not explaining that quite right. Suffice it to say that everything is going as planned. He will get the therapeutic dose on Thursday. Now instead of your standard furry little Mouse Army, there will be a glowing super Mouse Army with bulging muscles and major weapons that will not back down to anything!!

Thurs. 7/31 - Chris is full of little radiated antibodies, aka the Super Mouse Army. The procedure went well and he's feeling good.
If you missed the explanation on Radioimmunotherapy (Bexxar and Zevalin), here is the link again to a good video on it. Chris is only 1 of 15 or 16 people to have received Bexxar at Lutheran (possibly in the whole state) in the last couple years.

Tues 8/12 - Chris is officially non-radioactive. The progress from this treatment is expected to be slower than effects he's experienced with Chemo in the past. But to me it seems the pain is subsiding a little bit. He still can't eat very much at one sitting before it starts to hurt, though. He has been pretty active the last couple days. An encouraging sign. His next PET scan will take place in a few weeks.

Sat 8/16 - Chris' radiologist says the treatment seems to be working. Chris is still in a great deal of pain, but he has had some pretty good days. We are hopeful that in the next few weeks, the pain will decrease. A PET scan is scheduled for mid-September.

Fri 9/5 - After several days of badgering Chris to get his blood tested, I finally put my foot down today. And it was a good thing I did. His platelets are extremely low at 1! And his ANC (the white cells that fight infection) is 200. He has a transfusion in the morning. For the most part, he's been feeling ok. He has had a hard time with pain after eating. But the last few days that seems to have gotten better. He's been able to eat a lot more at one sitting. He's also been a lot more active the passed couple weeks. There is still another week before the next PET scan and he is scheduled to see the radiologist right after that.

We did get some heartbreaking news last week. Chris' oldest sister was diagnosed with multiple myeloma; a cancer that their dad also had. Needless to say, we are all pretty upset by the news.

Fri 9/12 - Despite the platelet transfusion last Friday, today's blood counts show very little change in his platelets. Most of his counts are extremely low. His PIC line looks like it may have become infected. He's been placed on antibiotics and is undergoing a platelet this afternoon and whole blood transfusion tomorrow morning. After a flourish of activity for the past few weeks, everything seems to have caught up to him. He spend all day in bed yesterday too weak to do anything but sleep.

Fri 9/19 - After months of failed chemo treatment and bad PET scans, we were not looking forward to yesterday's meeting with the radiologist. Chris had his first PET scan since the Bexxar treatment on Tuesday. The PET scan before this was back in June and showed the lymphoma had increased in activity and spread in spite of all the previous treatments. Since Chris is still experiencing quite a bit of pain and is running on empty most of the time, we really were not very optimistic.
So, we took a deep breath and listened as Chris' radiologist, Dr. Schewe, read the report to us. He started off with a mention that Chris was very lucky to have had him (Schewe) be able to administer the Bexxar treatment at all due to the difficult nature of his lymphoma. With that preamble in mind, we were even more nervous at the start, but the results wound up being all-in-all pretty upbeat; a bit of a mixed bag but a net gain. Basically, almost all of the established tumor activity has gone down, but there is one new tumor area as well as a section of Chris' lungs which is particularly worrisome. No one seems to know just what is going on there but the doctor thinks it's a stubborn infection of some kind. Bottom line is the report was positive, a far cry from hearing the cancer has spread and growing in intensity which we have become used to hearing. Another PET scan is scheduled in 6 weeks. It will be the one to determine which way things are really going. Truly, the scary one.
The radiologist has done all he can do thus far and we have a meeting on Monday with the bone marrow transplant doctor and wi?ll see what direction he wants to go. Whether he wants to wait for the results of the next PET scan or he wants to proceed with the next transplant right away. Things are not dull at the moment.

In the meantime, Chris' blood counts continue at an extremely low level. He had another platelet transfusion on Monday. This seems to be a direct side effect of the Bexxar. According to Dr. Schewe, in a person with uncompromised bone marrow (non-transplant), counts can be expected to go down by half with Bexxar. Chris had very low counts going into the treatment, so it was expected that his counts would bottom out. So, it is another 6 weeks of watching his counts and hoping there is more progress in the right direction.

Thurs 9/24 - Our scheduled meeting with the bone marrow transplant doctor was postponed from last Monday to tomorrow. This was to give the doctor a chance to circulate the PET scan results among the whole transplant team.
Chris' blood counts continue to remain low. He had another platelet transfusion yesterday and 3 units of whole blood today. Another unit of blood and possibly platelets will be given to him tomorrow after the meeting with the transplant doctor.

NEW Fri 10/10 - It has been a while between updates, but there hadn't been too much to report until today. Though experiencing an increase in pain and discomfort, Chris seemed to be holding his own. And it seemed to us that Chris' blood counts were on the way up. As it turns out, we were only half right. His white count and platelets have improved. His red count, however, has not and in fact got dangerously low. Chris had been feeling very fatigued and was having trouble concentrating yesterday. At first I thought it was both a lack of sleep (pain has been keeping him up at night) and some new pain meds he had just been prescribed. Then it occurred to me that it could be low blood counts and I was able to talk him into having his counts checked this morning. And it may have been in the nick of time. I don't think I've ever seen his oncologist so worried. He just stared at him when Chris tried to make light of things. Chris' red count was so low, the infusion center at the hospital sent him to Emergency for the transfusion for fear he'd go into shock. He was admitted and is being transfused overnight. I hope to have him back home tomorrow afternoon.