Seeing the First Specialist

11/6/2009: Doctor Quinn of USC was very impressive and accessible. His nurse practitioner talked a mile a minute but we'd read all this stuff on treatment on the internet and didn't get lost. After we give the "go", they'd operate soon with non-invasive laproscopic surgery by a doctor that we are told is a master of the procedure.

After the surgery, when I am functioning pretty normally (which should not take long thanks to the non-invasive surgery), they will need to do some preliminary stress tests to make sure that my body, heart and lungs can take the stress of high dosage Interleukin-2. When I start I'll be in the hospital for a week with lots of inter-venous doses every day and under close watch. I will feel terrible. I get a week off but I won't be real energetic. I do another week on and then wait about a month before the scan to check the effect. If it didn't shrink, they would test a couple weeks later because sometimes it takes time. If it does shrink then I should do a second month. Only 1 person of 220 had done 3 month cycles: everyone else just one or two. Two cycles of a month each is normal. Someone of my phys. makeup has "up to 25% chance of cure". It's been 5-15% but he says that I have a better chance due to my health.

They suggested Cheri (or someone that knows me well) stick around as much as possible to watch my demeanor in case I become confused or worse which means that it's affecting my mind and I they would need to tone it down. Yow.

If it fails, I would go on Sutent a couple months later or perhaps a drug trial at some later time. Sutent has milder effects and can cause some shrinkage but is not a cure. There are a few medications like that to try if Sutent does not work on me.

City of Hope no longer does high dose IL-2 so It's very unlikely that I'd be able to go there. They might even tell me to stick with USC because HD IL-2 is the only hope for a cure. But we'll see if Hope says something surprising. I see the doctor there on 11/16/09.