New Challenges

Hi all,

I've promised to be short in the past and will do so again tonight as Jen and I are exhausted. I'll provide more detail and updates later this week but here's the short story to a long week.

Last Sunday Andy was hospitalized for pain management. The hospital ran a series of tests (xrays, CT scans, blood) and diagnosed him with pneumonia on Sunday. On Monday of last week they gave him a full body MRI and found that the pain was being caused by the growth of the tumor on the T7 vertebrae. Surgery was recommended for Wednesday to reduce the risk of paralysis. The MRI also revealed that the chemo regimen is not working, as the mass in the lung has not shrunk and there are additional lesions in his liver. The T7 tumor did not respond to radiation and chemo, and has grown to about an inch.

I flew out Tuesday after work in preparation for surgery. During the trip out, the doctors consulted and decided to call off the surgery, due to the potential for post operation complications from Avastin, the second line drug treatment that he was receiving with the chemo. Avastin can cause abscessing for surgical wounds.

Andy is resting comfortably in the hospital, and his blood counts have gotten better (WBC, RBC, platelets). For now, we have to wait until the Avastin clears the system in order to have the spinal surgery. He is looking at a new chemo drug as well as additional consultation on testing from DFCI. We are working hard :) and hope to boost him from the hospital tomorrow, so that he can rest at home. In the interim up to the surgery, he will get a pick line, which will allow him to have IV fluids & antibiotics administered at home, and he will wear a back brace, and is on a new pain management regimen. He will have the surgery in early May and than be in the hospital (ICU, main population) for about a week afterwards.

So, good news in a round about way is that because of this episode we learned that the first line chemo treatment was not working a bit earlier, which is allowing us to move onto the next treatment options. The doctors have assured us that the additional wait time will not increase the risk of paralysis. Andy is getting stronger through the antibiotics and breathing treatments, so the pneumonia threat is dropping. And we continue to target mid May for an onsite consultation with Dana Farber in Boston.

Thank you to all the folks that reached out to help during this past week with meals, help with Nicholas, work, visits, kind words etc. This was a hectic week with a much more circuitous journey than I have described, and we kept quiet for a bit to allow the very dynamic situation settle a bit. I'll send more as we bring Andy home, and update this blog with some pictures.

Team Andy