Good afternoon,
So an interesting week. Oddly both my Edmonton and Grande Prairie treatments ended up in the same week and one day after the other.
Not much is changing that I can see. I have one tumor toward my shoulder that I would have to say beyond a doubt has been getting bigger but of the rest of my arm that I don't see either any new tumors or see that any of the 30 or so tumors are getting larger so I'm not sure what is going on.
Edmonton was its usual trip, hit all the Value Villages and book stores - no Corvette clothing this time!
The treatment was a bit more painful this time, I'm not sure why. I was happy it was done a bit earlier so that I was on the road more quickly. The side effects hit about 4 hours later and when I got home it really swung into high gear. I was smart enough to have my gf increase the house temperature by 4 degrees in preparation for the onset of the chills. That happened along with almost reliving every single injection that i had that day, lets say my arm was not in good shape!
The next day off to GP and the treatment there.
So I have one more treatment coming up and then on March 7th another combo PET/CT scan to see how things are doing.
BUT.................possibly some good news. There was a study at Cambridge University with a new treatment. The population size was small, 25 melanoma patients of which 13 got this lotion. However, it worked in all 13 cases! So the Dr. asked me if I wanted to try it given that the PEMBRO and IL2 injections haven't started to kick in yet. While the other treatment is covered by Alberta Health Care this isn't but bugger that I thought, thus is why we save $$$. SO much for my C8 Zora fund!
Of course the lotion wasn't in stock locally either (if you promise not to laugh it is currently used as an anti-wart lotion!!!!!!) and I even had to go to three places in GP to get it. We (my gf really) put the first treatment on last night. Fairly simple, I wash my arm, she applies the lotion, let it dry for 20 minutes and then 8 hours before I can shower so I do it right before bedtime.
A whole lot of side effects including lymphedema (currently already have some) but it got worse it appears today. My hand is now so swollen that I can't even touch my thumb to my baby finger! And let's not go with what my arm looks like but picture your thigh on you arm and you'll sort of get the picture. Then after 3 to 8 days the arm will look like it has been put in a blast furnace, red, blistered and weeping.............oh and it can cause Herpes - I don't understand this one either.
However if it works this is sort of pretty minor stuff and will go away once the treatment has ended. Not sure how long this will go for, it looks like 12 weeks. The treatment schedule is pretty funny, only the weekdays and not on weekends........possibly those were the clinic hours for the trial and they have to duplicate that??
But for the first time since this started I actually sort of am feeling hopeful that this might be my new lease on life. I know only one treatment has been done and I have a ways to go but feeling hopeful is sort of cool. I'm not sure why they didn't propose this before but I'm excited to be trying it and if it does work maybe hope for other Canadian melanoma patients for whom the standard treatments are not working........
Cheers,
Garry
