June 26th update



Nancy had another review yesterday.  She has not had a good month in regards to pain and energy levels.  Two changes to her medications were made.  Sounds like there will be another set of scans in the September timeframe.  All of her "numbers" seemed to be in line.  Hopefully these med changes make a difference.  Thanks for all for wonderful support.

May 31st Update

Nancy had another review with Dr Anthony on Tuesday. There was another medicine change to hopefully help the arthritic pain that Nancy has been having. This pain is very predictable as it is a side effect of the 2 main drugs that Nancy takes. Nancy did spend some time in Seattle including Mother's Day at Mike's. She also went to Wisconsin to see her Mom and Dad. Nancy's Dad is 86 and gets chemo treatments as well. Summer is coming, and the warm weather should be a good thing for Nancy. Thank you all for what is incredible support.

April 24th update

Nancy met with her Doctor yesterday. All her numbers appear to be on track, the regular Femara appears to be doing what is supposed to do. That is very good news. She also had another infusion of Zomeda, the bone-builder-up medicine. They have added another med to help with the arthritis that accompanies using Zomeda for a long period of time. Nancy is on Day 5 of that so it is too early to know results. Over the last two months, Nancy has had some really good days and some fairly uncomfortable days. Thank you all for wonderful support.

March 5th update

Nancy had a complete review with Dr Anthony yesterday. Here is what he believed happened: September of last year, our insurance no longer would cover Femara due to cost, so they made us change to generic Femara. All generics typically have some differences in how they are made, how they are absorbed, etc. Most of the time, that does not change results. In Nancy's case, it does appear that it did change the results. Nancy's cancer came back or "spiked". When she went off all drugs for 5 weeks to prepare for the trial, the cancer "settled down" again. The only variable was the change to generic Femara. So, Nancy will go on real Femara for the next 90 days and we will have another review. This is good news as the side effects on real Femara for Nancy were minimal. Thanks to all for great support.

February 29th update

Nancy went in Monday for her first dosage of the trial drug. Her scans from the week before were improved.... so, they scheduled her for one more PET scan Wednesday and delayed any meds until next Monday. Yesterday Nancy had that scan... today she was told that it appears now that the Femara can still be her main med. This is great news as Nancy has been able to handle the side effects of Femara.

We have another review on Monday with Dr Anthony, but are sure that she will restart Femara and continue with the original first plan. As of today, we have no explanation for the cancer flare-up....maybe we get that on Monday, maybe not.

Thanks for the support.

February 21st update

Nancy had meetings and scans at the Doctor’s yesterday. She has round two of this Thursday with more meetings and scans. Monday starts the actual trial. Here is a paragraph given to us to explain more about this new med-under-trial:

Indibulin is a microtubule inhibitor. Microtubules are important for maintaining cell structure and allowing for cancer cells to divide and grow. A microtubule inhibitor would reduce this activity. Indibulin is similar to taxanes and vinca alkaloid chemotherapeutics. Indibulin is a synthetic small-molecule chemical entity that binds to tubulin and inhibits cell growth during mitosis. Indibulin does not interact with neuronal tubulins, thus less neurotoxicity (such as neuropathy). (I had help from our trial nurse on this paragraph….chuckle).

Nancy will be one of 3 people in the US on 200mg dosage. The med comes in pill form, and is taken for 5 days, then off 9 days. Monday and Tuesday are basically at the Doctor’s office getting first treatments and then blood draws and observation almost every hour. She also has another visit next Friday. Then it appears to be just Monday meetings and blood draws for the next few weeks.

Our hope is this works really well for Nancy and for many others in the future. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers.

February 3rd update

Nancy signed up for the medical trial today. The trial will begin for Nancy on 2/27. She will be having baseline scans and tests the week before that. The first month is very busy, then it rolls into a main routine requiring weekly blood draws for as long as she is on the medicine. There are also additional scans and tests than she had on a released med. Nancy will be around the 15th person in the US for this trial. She will be the 4th person on this trial for Dr Anthony. The only other trial site so far is in New York.

We are hoping for good things from this new drug for Nancy. We are also hoping that whatever they learn from Nancy's experience can maybe help others in the future.

We will keep you posted, thank you all for great support!