June 11th Appointments
Time for another update...
So on Tuesday, June 11th I had my monthly visit to Huntsman. It was a rather busy day to say the least. We had to leave home at 4:30 am to be up to the hospital by 7:00 am so that I could begin drinking the contrast for my CT scan. My schedule was as follows:
8:00 am CT Scan
9:00 am Acupuncture
12:00 noon Labs
1:00 pm MRI
2:30 pm Visit with Radiation Oncologist Dr. Burt
3:00 pm Visit with Oncologist's PA
We managed to squeeze brunch with my parents in there, but it was a pretty busy day. Unfortunately, we weren't able to spend much time with Dr. Burt. She'd been double booked and stopped in for just a couple of minutes. She briefly discussed my brain imaging, which is what we'd been looking forward to the most. We found out the the 8 tumors that had previously been radiated seem to be responding well to the radiation. That being said, she also indicated that there were possibly 7 new tumors, but that she hadn't had enough time to really look into it. She wanted to present my results to the neurological tumor board the next afternoon to see what they said before we discussed treatment moving forward. Her concern was there may be a need for whole brain radiation to help really get things under control...
After that, we met with Dr. Voorhies PA. Unfortunately, Dr. Voorhies is moving to a clinic in St. George and will no longer be my oncologist. We have loved working with him and will definitely miss seeing him. We aren't sure who my new assigned oncologist will be, but hopefully we find out soon.
So the meeting with his PA, Caroline, was pretty good. My BRAF inhibitor medication seemed to have stopped working. My CT scan results showed some mixed signs. Some tumors shrunk and some grew. The overall consensus moving forward was that a change to immunotherapy was needed. I agreed. However, there were a couple of options. One involved a combo drug (ipilimumab and nivolomab) or just nivolomab. The choice would depend on what Dr. Burt wanted to do as far as radiation went and I think my case would also be presented to the melanoma tumor board on Thursday, July 13th to see what they thought.
Anyway, they discussed side effects of the immunotherapy drugs and sent me on my way. We left with some mixed results. Tumors in my body and brain were responding to treatment, but it appears there are new tumors in my brain as well as my body. I was told Dr. Burt would contact me on Thursday after the melanoma board and let me know what they found. We shall see!
So on Tuesday, June 11th I had my monthly visit to Huntsman. It was a rather busy day to say the least. We had to leave home at 4:30 am to be up to the hospital by 7:00 am so that I could begin drinking the contrast for my CT scan. My schedule was as follows:
8:00 am CT Scan
9:00 am Acupuncture
12:00 noon Labs
1:00 pm MRI
2:30 pm Visit with Radiation Oncologist Dr. Burt
3:00 pm Visit with Oncologist's PA
We managed to squeeze brunch with my parents in there, but it was a pretty busy day. Unfortunately, we weren't able to spend much time with Dr. Burt. She'd been double booked and stopped in for just a couple of minutes. She briefly discussed my brain imaging, which is what we'd been looking forward to the most. We found out the the 8 tumors that had previously been radiated seem to be responding well to the radiation. That being said, she also indicated that there were possibly 7 new tumors, but that she hadn't had enough time to really look into it. She wanted to present my results to the neurological tumor board the next afternoon to see what they said before we discussed treatment moving forward. Her concern was there may be a need for whole brain radiation to help really get things under control...
After that, we met with Dr. Voorhies PA. Unfortunately, Dr. Voorhies is moving to a clinic in St. George and will no longer be my oncologist. We have loved working with him and will definitely miss seeing him. We aren't sure who my new assigned oncologist will be, but hopefully we find out soon.
So the meeting with his PA, Caroline, was pretty good. My BRAF inhibitor medication seemed to have stopped working. My CT scan results showed some mixed signs. Some tumors shrunk and some grew. The overall consensus moving forward was that a change to immunotherapy was needed. I agreed. However, there were a couple of options. One involved a combo drug (ipilimumab and nivolomab) or just nivolomab. The choice would depend on what Dr. Burt wanted to do as far as radiation went and I think my case would also be presented to the melanoma tumor board on Thursday, July 13th to see what they thought.
Anyway, they discussed side effects of the immunotherapy drugs and sent me on my way. We left with some mixed results. Tumors in my body and brain were responding to treatment, but it appears there are new tumors in my brain as well as my body. I was told Dr. Burt would contact me on Thursday after the melanoma board and let me know what they found. We shall see!
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