C'mon Clinical Trial!

 Unfortunately it's not a particular great day here.

After two treatments, it's obvious that the Myelotarg is not working. My peripheral blasts are up to 74%! That is WAY higher than they have ever been before. And Dr. Atallah came to visit me in the day hospital, so I knew it wasn't good.

My other counts aren't much to write about.

WBC: 0.8; ANC: 0.01; HGB: 8.2; PLT: 8k; 

Liver function tests are still elevated, but not as high as two days ago: AST & ALT both 139

I have been getting platelets about every other day, both because the leukemia has completely taken over, and any meds I'm getting impact platelet counts first and the other blood cells later.

They are discontinuing the Myelotarg. I started on a new oral chemo called Hydroxyurea in hopes that it will knock down the blasts and buy me time to hopefully get into the CLAG-M + lintuzumab clinical trial. Dr. Atallah said that it has made it through FDA approval and just needs internal Froedtert approval. As a reminder, this is the third increase in dosage in the Phase I trial. Phase I trials are only used to determine if a regimen is safe to administer to patients. Therefore, every patient gets the treatment. This is the highest dose they plan to give in this regimen. Thusfar the lower doses have had excellent results, which you can read about here or here.

I will hopefully enter the hospital next week. I’ll likely be on 7CFAC and they’re working to allow visitors. I'm not sure if it will be like last time where I can only have one visitor for the duration of my stay, or if they will allow multiples. I'll certainly let you all know when I find out.

Straight talk:

This is quite likely my last chance. Furthermore, by increasing the dose (clinical trial), it’s possible that my counts won’t recover (Dr. Hamadani has ideas on how to remedy that, but it’ll mean a much longer hospital stay—closer to two months.) Still, I'm trying to be as positive as I can. The results in even patients with high risk cytogenetics has been pretty good. The cool think about the lintuzumab is that it is not chemo, but a radioactive element that works even on leukemia that has burned through several chemos. Since this is a Phase I trial, it's only looking to determine the maximum safe dose, and therefore what happens after the treatment is up to the doctor's discretion. So as long as I survive the CLAG-M + lintuzumab, Drs. Atallah and Hamadani can do whatever to keep me in remission (or treat me in other ways, I guess). That's hopeful.

Since I may not get out of the hospital until Thanksgiving time, I guess I’ll try and pack in as much outdoor, fun stuff as possible the rest of this week!

And I sure hope this treatment works.

p.s. just to end this post with a happy thought, here's a photo of Kravitz that his foster mom sent. I will hopefully be in the hospital before he gets to join our family, but we're trying to arrange a play date this weekend so I can store up some Kravitz love for the hospital stay.