For those of you keeping score at home this was day 1 at Duke for post-surgery follow up and to try and get into a new trail (new for me) called RESTART.  It is specifically for recurrent tumors.   By the way the first trial I was in did EXACTLY what it was supposed to do, i.e. fight the protein that caused this SOB to begin with and the cells it did not kill, it changed their makeup, however still cancerous and nefarious.  So the new fight starts tomorrow.  Which means since the makeup of the cancerous cells have changed the original vaccine would no longer be effective.

If you are so inclined the pertinent information is at Duke Clinical Trials, search brain cancer and the study is Recurrent GBM Stem Cell Tumor Amplified RNA Immunotherapy Trial, or you can copy and paste this link in you browser.  And if you do this and actually read it, seriously consider getting a life.

If you do not read the stuff on the Duke site I will not be offended, the layman’s version is they are ampping up my white blood cells with a protein (Avastin) so my own immune system will be able to fight this disease.  

Tomorrow, or day 2 at Duke will consist of me going through a process called leukaphersis, or basically I am receiving a blood transfusion of my own blood. Huh?

Blood is drawn out of my left arm, much like when you give blood then run through a magic box, and the white blood cells are cultivated and the red blood cells returned to me in my right arm.  It is a 4 hour process.

For those of you that really want the details see the second paragraph of this epistle focusing primarily on the last sentence of that paragraph.

Why am I doing this blog entry and not either of the dynamic duo aka Sam/Sarah? Good question.

Their literary talents have clearly been exposed as wanting, not from a lack of trying at Danville High School or Hanover College but obviously something has dulled their senses. Sarah has an excuse now that she is THRITY, no such excuse for Samuel, although I suspect I know what is causing Sam to regress.

Again the treatments and message we are receiving here are very positive and everyone is very encouraging.

I have gained 2 pounds so it is time to kick the training into high gear.

As always thank you for taking the time and for caring enough to read this nonsense.