Abby's Journey Archive

As many of you will recall, we were to go to Tucson on Monday for Abby to start the bone marrow transplant phase of her treatment. Amy wrote earlier this week about the results of her MRI this past Monday that revealed more tumor progression. Because of this, the doctors are doubting that her tumor is responding to high-dose chemotherapy (she had an MRI 4/25 that showed some tumor progression, radiosurgery 5/2, chemo starting 5/10, but the 6/6 MRI shows one completely new nodule, ergo it doesn't look like the chemo is working). If we are thinking that the tumor is not chemo-sensitive, then it doesn't seem to make any sense that we would put Abby through the BMT process, and we need to try other types of treatment. This could include more radiosurgery or a Phase I or II clinical trial of a non-traditional therapy.

It is possible we might still do the BMT process because it uses drugs she hasn't been exposed to yet.

We are needing God's guidance, it seemed like He had caused so many things to fall into place for us and had engaged us in preparation for the BMT, it doesn't seem logical for Him to steer us in a different direction. It's also hard for us to simply say we are "done" with the chemo process because it feels a little bit like we are giving up.

On the other hand we had a conversation with Dr. Packer from DC last night and he is encouraging us to seek a Phase I or II trial testing "biologic therapies." These therapies utilize new drugs that target tumor growth factors and/or other factors that can help the body recognize that the tumor is foreign.

Generally a Phase I trial is "hm, this looks interesting, let's try it and see what happens." It tests efficacy of a treatment, whether a patient can tolerate the drugs at all, toxicity levels, etc. A Phase II trial is "wow, we tried this, and some of our patients did 'better' after the treatment."

But the thing we need prayer for most is deciding whether or not to go to Tucson for the BMT process. After we decide, we would be able to pursue the other avenues if that seems like the direction we should take. We deeply desire to be where the Lord wants us to be. So, please pray for His leading in making our decision.

We'll continue to post new information as we receive it.