Ray and I went to Boston Wednesday and met with Dr. Zhu and his APRN Michelle. They gave us a lot of information that we needed to digest and think about. Today I notified them that I want to do the clinical trial.

First of all Dr. Zhu did not want me staying on the cisplatin. This is the drug that caused my hearing loss. He was very concerned about further toxic reaction to the drug. So I had chemo today and only had the gemzar. So it didn’t take as long.

Today was my last chemo for a while. One of the requirements of the trial is that I don’t have chemo for at least 4 weeks. It’ll take at least 6 weeks to start on the trial. In the meantime, I need to go to Mass General for a lot of testing, i.e., physical exam, blood and urine work, EKG, ECHO, vision test, etc. Passing all these tests is necessary to be accepted in the trial.

The clinical trial is for a drug that specifically attacks the gene mutation that was found in my cancer. This is my chance to have a longer survival rate from this deadly cancer. If it doesn’t work, I can go back on the chemo that I’ve been taking for the last 10 months.

Ray and I will be back and forth to Boston a lot over the next several months as they monitor me very closely in the beginning and at least once a month after all is considered to be going well. They take CT scans every 8 weeks as opposed to every 3 months to see how the drug is working.

Hoping that I get accepted into the trial and have good results with this new part of my journey.

As always, thanks to everyone for their continued prayers and support. Love you all!