Mayo Clinic Revlimid Treatment
Tomorrow I will drive the 336 miles in seven hours to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. Quick visit with the good and famous Dr. Witzig on Tuesday, then return home with my second 21-day supply of cancer-fighting tablets to take once a day at home. I started into this clinical trial of the drug Revlimid a month ago, and it's going pretty well so far. Just a few minor side-effects, like some hoarseness in my voice, and difficulty pronouncing some word combinations. like "the Lord." Too bad; that's one I like to say well!
Last month Mayo found that my cancer is showing up in a couple of places where it has not before. The total amount is still small, but it grows more aggressively than it has in the past, when I am off treatment for even one month. This means that my future treatments will have to be more rugged, probably not leave me looking or feeling as good as previous ones have. In April I will get my next scans that show what effect the Revlimid is having. If my mantle cell lymphoma grows, we will have to decide what my fourth treatment for this tenacious disease will be. Several effective treatment options are open to me.
My strategy is to keep putting together novel treatments that give me a year at a time, without too much depletion of my wellness. Then, five years from now, some researchers are saying they will probably have a cure, in the form of a cocktail of about five ingredients, each of which brilliantly blocks a different pathway of survival of the cancer cells, so that they give up and die. Revlimid is likely to be one ingredient in the cocktail, blocking the formation of the tiny blood vessels that tumors need to supply nutrients to them.
Thinking life-and-death thoughts like this tuned my eyes to notice the exquisite sparkle of snowflakes on the ground as I was walking the Prairie Path the other day. Sure, the winter has been long, and the amount and persistence of the snow tedious. But to receive the gift of new eyes, to see the friendly glint of the warming sun off the facets of the snow crystals - ah, that is one of the sweet legacies of having cancer, and a good God who's in it with me.
Dennis Gibson, Ph.D.
Last month Mayo found that my cancer is showing up in a couple of places where it has not before. The total amount is still small, but it grows more aggressively than it has in the past, when I am off treatment for even one month. This means that my future treatments will have to be more rugged, probably not leave me looking or feeling as good as previous ones have. In April I will get my next scans that show what effect the Revlimid is having. If my mantle cell lymphoma grows, we will have to decide what my fourth treatment for this tenacious disease will be. Several effective treatment options are open to me.
My strategy is to keep putting together novel treatments that give me a year at a time, without too much depletion of my wellness. Then, five years from now, some researchers are saying they will probably have a cure, in the form of a cocktail of about five ingredients, each of which brilliantly blocks a different pathway of survival of the cancer cells, so that they give up and die. Revlimid is likely to be one ingredient in the cocktail, blocking the formation of the tiny blood vessels that tumors need to supply nutrients to them.
Thinking life-and-death thoughts like this tuned my eyes to notice the exquisite sparkle of snowflakes on the ground as I was walking the Prairie Path the other day. Sure, the winter has been long, and the amount and persistence of the snow tedious. But to receive the gift of new eyes, to see the friendly glint of the warming sun off the facets of the snow crystals - ah, that is one of the sweet legacies of having cancer, and a good God who's in it with me.
Dennis Gibson, Ph.D.
posted by Dr. Dennis L. Gibson at 1:48 PM
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