Bald is Beautiful

I’m writing this on the occasion of my 100th radiation treatment. Only 6 more.

Update on my most recent trip to Nashville and Sarah Cannon.

I met with Dr. Erika Hamilton who is director of the clincal trials and two of her team. They are all mid thirties to forties, one was about seven months pregnant. and interestingly all had long blonde hair (yes, I envied their hair since I’ll be bald again pretty soon). I was so impressed that they all chose to go into a difficult medical field, and from what I’ve seen at Sarah Cannon, the facility is largely populated with female health care workers. Yay for smart, capable women. Thank goodness so many women are doctors these days. I like this place!

Hamilton said she thinks that they may have a phase one clincal trial for me. (That’s early stage of testing. Gets approved after it moves through 3 phases.) It’s an oral drug called Rebastinid which I will take along with chemo drug taxotere.

I will drive to Nashville once a week to get labs and chemo. I will take the pill a couple of times a day. Supposedly the side effects are not bad and they’ve had a 50-60% success rate with the drug which is supposed to be an anti-angiogenesis drug which will stop cancer from growing new vessels.

The drug company will pay for my hotel if I have early appts or I have to stay for a long time. The nurse coordinator said I might be there 8-12 hours the first day. They will do all kinds of scans for the drug company,

But before that starts I will get another cat scan on March 30 to start the process so they have a baseline of what my tumors look like.

After 8 weeks they will scan again. If cancer gone yay for all of us. If not then we will go with more traditional standard of care.

I will lose my hair again with taxotere. Sigh. Thank goodness for wigs. And I will be bald through the first of June, maybe longer.

But if I’m put on this protocol I’ll be pleased. And hopeful. I’m hoping that next Wednesday will be the end of radiation but if these drugs fail I may be back to radiating my left side. I hoped I’d never have chemo again but never say never. I’m just grateful I didn’t go to a hair stylist for a “real” cut or color. Catch ya later!