Treatment is to begin

We went and saw Dr Barlett yesterday. Due to the fact that Bob is not going to be 70 until May, he falls into the cat. for the clinical trial.This will be a fast pace hard hitting treatment over a period of 4 mths. He has a very good outlook on this and is ready to do it. This will require mutliple hospital stays due to the harsh chemo.


Next Wen. 12th- Bob will go in and get another bone marrow asp., blood work and begin his first chemo treatment.He will be in the hospital for 3 days. The reason is one of the chemo drugs can harm the kidneys. He will be given large amount of fluids to flush the kidneys. His chemo will be Rituximab, methotrexate (kidney), Cyclophohamide, doxorubicin, and Vincristine.

3 weeks later, we will repeat the chemo with another 3 day stay. approximately April 2.

We then wait 6 wks appr. May 14. Bob will go into the hospital for autologus Stem Cell replacement. This means he will receive a high dose of chemo for 1 wks. This is to kill the bone marrow. They will the harvest the stem cells and freeze them. How they harvest is by taking his blood. Almost like a blood transfusion. During this period of time, he will be highly susceptible to infection due to a low immune system. They will then give back his stem cell after the chemo has been eliminated from his body. Same way, like a blood transfusion. He will then stay in the hospital until his blood count comes back up. During this period, he will be getting antibiotics, blood transfusions and nutrition. He will have to be on antibiotics for a short period after leaving the hospital.

After this several wks later, he will receive Velcade. This is the experimental drug. This is no cost to him. Two different ways-he will receive once a week an inj 1 a week every 3 wks for 12 weeks or once a month for 2 yrs. He will be randomly but in one of these trials.

During this period of treatment he will be getting blood work, bone marrow asp, a port during stems cell and scans.

This has given high results in putting mantle cell in remission without recurrence. Regular chemo he will have remission and recurrence for the rest of his life. So basically, A rough period for 4 mth compared the rest of his life in chemo.

He will be going in on Wednesday March 12 at 1:00 and hopefully out on Sat. March 15.

The research nurse should be calling today to let us know if everything is good for him to do this trial and what else needs to be done.

Everyone keep him in your prayers. Hopefully he will not have to bad of side effects from this. They say the only real bad side effect is the velcade giving neuropathy of the hands. Not to bad of side effects. He will lose his hair. I hate to be Donna picking up all that hair. Hopefully he doesn't develope any infections during his stem cell.

I will keep you update once we start the chemo on his health.