Hello fam,
I wish I was sharing better news with you but the reality of a clinical trial is that it doesn’t work for everyone. Despite my high hopes, the NIH TIL treatment and immunotherapy didn’t respond the way we wanted it to. The cancer is growing significantly enough that it’s time to return to a more conventional treatment to get try to get things under control and prevent spread.
This means that I’ll be restarting chemotherapy this coming Tuesday, unless it’s not approved by insurance for some reason. I’ll be on an aggressive combination of both chemos that I’ve taken in the past, oxaliplatin and irinotecan that is referred to as FOLFOXIRI.
While this will be aggressive, and I’ll have to navigate the various side effects of both drugs, my oncologist feels that I’m strong enough to be able to handle it, considering how I’ve been able to tolerate all my treatments to date. This doesn’t mean that it’s going to be easy but I have some comfort in knowing that the short-term goal is to get through 4 cycles (2 months) of it and then we’ll do new scans to reassess my overall cancer burden.
So, here we go…again. Chris and I each separately brought up how receiving the news about the failed NIH trial felt a bit like when I first got diagnosed. We were both scared as hell and fears of a quick death consumed both our thoughts. However, once the initial shock settled and we accepted the reality of the situation, we found hope and got to work.
That’s where we’re at now. With a heart and mind full of hope, and knowing that we have our community supporting from afar, we’re ready for this next stage in our journey.
Thank you all and I’ll check in again soon.
With love and gratitude,
Jess
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