Mom and Dad were able to move out of their apartment in Seattle and head back home before Christmas as planned. She was happy to be back home in time for the holidays. I was also able to head over to Kennewick for Christmas and New Years and to help celebrate Moms birthday with the rest of the family. She is doing fine and continuing to slowly regain her strength.
She is nearly done with the transplant monitoring phase. Some of her blood counts are a bit on the low side, so she is still juggling various pills and shots to try and adjust the levels. Following the transplant, she has the option of participating in a clinical trial maintenance program. This maintenance program is an experimental treatment using two drugs (bortezomib and vorinostat) and is aimed at potentially extending the duration of remission. However, since this is an experimental study there is no guarantee that the treatment will work as intended.
The maintenance treatment consists of taking vorinostat pills daily for the first two weeks of each month with a single shot of bortezomib at the beginning of the first and second week of each month. Since this is a controlled clinical study, the actual treatment needs to occur at the SCCA clinic in Seattle. So in order to continue this maintenance treatment, Mom needs to drive over to Seattle the beginning of each month to pick up the pills and receive the first shot, head back home and then drive back up the following week (just for the day) to receive the second shot. She also needs a weekly blood test that can be performed in Kennewick to monitor her progress. This maintenance protocol would continue for a one year period.
Mom has tentatively agreed to start with the maintenance treatment. One of our primary concerns is the hassle of driving back and forth between Kennewick and Seattle, (a 3.5 hour drive one-way). There is also the concern of side effects from the various drugs also, so we'll have to play it by ear. She can withdraw from the study at any time, so the plan is to try it out and see how things go.
Mom and Dad were up here Sunday through Tuesday this week staying at the SCCA house to start the first round of the maintenance treatment on Monday. Either Dad or Laura will bring Mom back up to Seattle on Monday for the day to receive the second shot. We will then plan on repeating this process each month.
Chris
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