Clinical Trial

Gil began a clinical trial of Velcade and dexamethazone on June 23rd.  He'll be doing 8 three week cycles involving 2 weeks of twice weekly IV Velcade and then the third week off.  Unfortunately, the "low dose" dexamethasone is taken once every week and with Gil's insomnia issues has led to one night each week of NO sleep which he slowly recovers from before the next week's no sleep.  The dexamethazone contributes to the effectiveness of the Velcade so we are loath to ratchet it down to a lower dose.  We're trying to be creative about ways to safeguard from exhaustion and build in rest.

The Velcade is one of several newish drugs which might give him a partial remission or at least good control of the disease for a while.

 Myeloma is an odd cancer. Rather than becoming tolerant of the different chemos, it finds a different way to work it's platelet orgy and  so works around the road block that particular drug has thrown up. 

We saw some stats about the newer drugs and what's being researched and developed that give us hope that if he can hang in there for the next five years or so that there may be drugs available which could "manage" the Myeloma and make it more of a chronic rather than terminal disease.

My understanding about Multiple Myeloma is very basic.  If you want to understand more the International Myeloma Foundation has a great web site and tons of info.

I hope to get the hang of this blog thing and make this a little more interesting, but that's all for now.   kathleen