08/04/09 Second Week of Treatment in Boston

8/04/09 We had a much better day today Joe woke up feeling pretty good, his back was still a little sore but since he did not have to get the G - injection he felt pretty good. We went through are morning routine rather quickly this morning I think we are adapting to it. The scary thing is my driving skills have greatly improved, if you could see the morning rush hour here it is crazy and I am just like ho-hum instead of white knuckling it all the way to the hospital. Well enough of that, Joe was like a rock star at the stem cell clinic today from the minute we walked in everyone was talking about how he pushed out the 24,000,000 stem cells. It was wonderful nobody has done that many in years so it made Joe and me feel pretty great. It was the same routine first his vitals and than back on the stem cell machine. Today he only had to stay on it until about 11:00. Today's movie was High Crimes with Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd (Joe's favorite actress) he was hoping to see her naked but no such luck. The psychiatrist came in and checked on Joe, we had about a 30 minute visit with him. Ok the funny thing is Joe has been harassing most of his doctors, especially with the whole Red Sox / Yankees thing and he can usually get them to play along well not so much with the psychiatrist. Anyways you all know Joe pretty well so you can imagine him with the psychiatrist for the most part it went pretty good and he felt that Joe and I were handling everything well. Joe's Stem Cell Transplant doctor; Dr. Sanchorawala came in to talk to us about Joe participating in a clinical trial. Let me back up a minute as some of you may know Joe is a high risk patient for the stem cell transplant due to his Atrial Fibrillation and his bleeding disorder so they are taking many precautions during the treatment process. Well he is doing so good so far they feel that he will now also be a good candidate for the clinical trial that they have in progress at the research facility. So let me explain with the treatment Joe is having now (Hi dose chemo/ stem cell transplant ) the complete remission rate is 50% and remission rate is 30%. If he has the clinical trial along with the current treatment plan his complete remission rate goes up to 70% or higher. What the clinical trial involves is Joe would have four doses of a type of chemo called Velcade given to him for four days before he starts the High doses of 100mg Melphalan for two days then he will get his Stem Cell infusion on the seventh day. They have had great success with this clinical trial they are 4 for 4 for the complete remission of 70% or higher. We have discussed it and Joe wants to go for the clinical trial. We have to hope that the insurance company approves their share because the cost per day of the Velcade is $12,000.00 so we will not know until Thursday if Joe can participate. Keep your fingers crossed and pray on it. Today was a short day we got leave at 12:30 and Joe did so well with stem cell collection and his cath looks so good we get the day off tomorrow yeah!!! Time to catch up on some sleep and all the paperwork that insurance companies require. We will not know until Thursday how many more stem cells Joe collected today but I am sure it was more than the 6,ooo,ooo they wanted from him. So all in all today was a good day, Joe and I were acting goofy today at the hospital and we took a picture of us (Joe is not sleeping just being a goofball). We love you all and your comments are great, I read them to Joe before I start each days blog.