MM121 done...now on to the next

It has been a while since I last posted, so I decided to update everyone on things. The past two Friday's have been spent sitting in a reclining chair in a chemo suite as they call it. This is a room of four rows of chairs lined up with people getting chemo at the same time.

The first visit on 2/17 was a little nerve racking. My port was placed on that Tuesday on my left side near my collar bone. The part I was dreading most was them using the port for this process as I didn't know what to expect. I really didn't feel the needle poke through as my skin was still kind of numb from the surgery that Tuesday and the nurse used some freeze spray to numb it too. They drew blood from my port as they will do before every chemo session from now on. After drawing blood we had to wait 15 minutes before starting the MM121 which is the chemo study drug I was getting. Since it is a study drug it has to be timed and one a certain way in order to make sure that the study goes correctly. After finally getting started we were done by 3pm.

My next session of MM121 was last Friday 2/24 and it wasn't quite as scary as I knew little bit more of what to do. This time when they were trying to draw blood my port was clogged as my body was trying to fight off this foreign object. So no blood would come out. They had to inject me with some type of enzyme and wait 20 minutes to clear it out. It worked and hopefully we will not have to do that again next time.

So the two starter doses of MM121 are done and there hasn't been too many side effects. I have been able to work and have visitors. I did have another study biopsy today 2/27 since the MM121 starter doses are done.

Thank you to those of you have brought over food for us and for my friends at Odyssey who pitched in for the house cleaning on Friday! We really appreciate everything you all are doing!

This week I will be starting the "fun" stuff. I will still take the study drug M121, but will also be adding the normal Paclitaxel ("Taxol" for short) to it as well. This drug has some more harsh side effects that I am not looking forward to, but it is the next step in beating this disease....so bring it on!