What's this Moffit Cancer stuff?

Ok... talked to Donna and Mitch today.

The Moffit Cancer Center in Florida is working on stuff that helps the immune system aid in the fight against cancer.

They have a treatment idea where they take a patient's blood throughout a round of chemo, watch how things change over the month, and then create a custom formula that will allow the body's immune system help the chemo to be more effective.

Moffit did a test group using this idea, and they had about a 50% increase in the effectiveness of the chemo.

They are doing a second round of testing, and they are accepting 100 individuals. 66 will get the custom syrum and 34 will get a placebo.

Donna is a good candidiate for the second round. They have given her initial approval for the program. She will be flying out to Florida for a meeting December 1 to make sure everything looks good and to actually be admitted to the program if they accept her.

Either way, she will finish this 4-6 month batch of chemo treatments. If she is accepted into the program, she will then spend a month in Florida. They will give her a round of chemo, and then check out her blood almost every day for the entire month. They will make up the custom syrum (or a not so custom placebo) give it to Donna before the next batch of chemo. That syrum will be used over an entire batch of 4-6 treatments.

It also appears that this kind of a treatment works kinda like an immunization... If Donna's cancer goes into remmission, and then comes back, the improvements in her immune system should still be in place to make fighting the cancer a second time more effective.

Important Upcoming Dates

November 7th. - Visit to the Ear/Nose/Throat doc. (Donna wants her voice back)

November 24,25,26 - Second round of Chemo

December 1 - Trip to the Moffit Cancer Center in Florida.

Chemo - Day 2

Today Donna is doing her second round of chemo.

So far, she has felt pretty well, tho she still doesn't have a voice. Sometimes people get quite sick after the first treatment... They say that it takes some people a couple days to feel sick, and some people don't feel that bad at all...

I am lucky to have a registered nurse for a wife, so I get to ask all the questions and she gets to answer them for me. So... here are the questions I had... Maybe you have them too:

Will she lose her hair? Probably... some people don't but most people do... We'll wait and see.

How do they give her the chemo? They sit her down in a comfy lazy boy recliner, put an IV in her hand, and then start giving her saline... After a bit, they put in the first type of chemo medicine, and then they put in the second one, and then they put in more saline to kinda flush the lines out and make sure it all gets in. This process takes a total of about an hour and a half. Seems like so far, the hardest part for Donna is sitting still... :-)

How long does the chemo last in her body? It has a half life of 5 days. So... if they give her 100 units, then 5 days later there are 50 units... 10 days later there are 25. At 25 days there are only about 3 of the original 100 units... That's when the next round starts, jumping it back up to around 100.

Any other questions or comments? Just post them and I will get them answered.

Cold

I talked to Mitch some yesterday.

Donna has had a cold that is really bugging her. She lost her voice over the weekend (and if you know Donna, you know how rough that can be.. ;-)

Hopefully she can get over this cold at least somewhat before she goes in for chemo on Wednesday.

Where are we today.

Donna had a meeting with the doctor on Monday. This is where things sit right now:

She has two spots on her lung that are cancerous.
She has several spots on her liver that are also cancerous. These growths most likely came from the lung.
The type of cancer is Small Cell Carcinoma.


Her first round of chemo starts October 29th and goes for 3 days. It will be systemic chemo (meaning, it will not be localized to just one part of her body), which can be pretty rough. They then give her 25 days to recover and then give her another 3 days of chemo. This cycle will continue for 4-6 rounds and they will evaluate its effectiveness.

Surgery is not really an option. They could remove her lung, but they cant remove her liver.

Donna's heart is doing well... The pacemaker that was installed seems to be doing the job well, and things on that front have stabilized.

What is this?

This is a site that is being created to help communicate everything that is going on with Donna Mattice and her health. Many friends and family have been asking about where things are and how things are going. This will be a place where everyone can come and see whats up, instead of telling each person individually over and over.

Don't think that Donna doesn't want to hear from you. Continue to encourage her and lift her up in your prayers.

Also, just so you know, this blog is maintained by her son Kelly Dodge.

Thank You!