Batter up!

Hi! Whoever said the living is easy in the summer time certainly didn't have four kids. I think this is only the third time I've had a chance to sit down at my computer in the last 10 days! It's not that we have loads of activities on the calendar. We signed Regan up for swimming lessons and Jack has t-ball once each week. That's it. But I'm not moving as fast as I did before I got my cane, and having a walking one-year-old underfoot certainly increases the amount of activity in the house. Fortunately, I have great kids and the three oldest are usually happy to give me a hand when I need it.

Jack's t-ball team had "official" team pictures taken last week. We could have paid $18 for a 5 x 7 photo of Jack swinging a bat and an 8 x 10 photo of him standing with kids he sees once each week for eight weeks. If he had been our first child, we might have done it. As fate would have it, however, he is our third. So we skipped team pictures. We took Jack to a neighborhood playground, snapped a couple of digital photos of him with his bat and glove, and then the whole family went to Gilles for custard. Jack was happy with that, and so was everyone else.

Speaking of Jack, he and I went to the Milwaukee Art Museum yesterday. Aubrey and Regan were away at Camp Angel (a three-day camp in north Wisconsin for kids who have parents, siblings, or grandparents with cancer; I'll post some pictures if and when I get some) so I thought it would be fun to do something just with Jack. The Brewers game was sold out, so he said he wanted to go to the Art Museum instead. If you live in the Milwaukee area and haven't been to the MAM lately, I recommend paying a visit. They recently opened a "Sensory Overload" exhibit that is absolutely terrific, especially for kids. It's part of the regular collection, so you don't have to pay extra. And did you know Milwaukee County residents get free admission on Wednesdays (kids under 12 are free all the time)? Anyway, that's just a little about what we've been doing. Will write more later.

Another Dose of Ipi

Hi! I traveled to Chicago yesterday to receive another dose of ipilumumab or, as Dr. Richards calls it, "ipi" (rhymes with "hippy"). Cee Cee, who is the wife of my good friend Tony Popanz and the mother of my god-daughters Allie and Chloe, served as my chauffeur and companion for the day. The infusion was uneventful, and the only side effect I've felt so far is the need for an afternoon nap.

Some of you may wonder why the doctor would put me back on a trial medication to which I had previously shown no response. The reason is that ipi has proved to be unique in the way that patients respond to it. Unlike traditional melanoma treatments, which produce immediate results and that must be discontinued eventually because of the harm they do to the body, ipi actually builds an immune response that--in a growing number of trial patients--reveals itself gradually over a period of several months. According to a recent evaluation of melanoma trial treatments, ipi is showing a "pattern of responses that has never been seen before: some patients have slow regression of old lesions and then develop new lesions, which then shrink; some patients show a slow regression over a long period, with a partial response at 6 months; and some patients show progression of disease followed by regression."

Because these positive responses failed to materialize during the first 12 or 24 weeks of treatment, the drug manufacturers had to take patients off the ipi and out of the clinical trials. Fortunately, doctors who administer the trials noticed that many of these "failed" patients were showing disease regression long after receiving their last dose of ipi. Thanks to the diligence of these doctors, patients like me can return to the trials for continued treatment. Hopefully, ipi will prove to have even better response rates with prolonged usage.

Anyway, I won't know much about how ipi is working for me until I go back for CT scans in 12 weeks. That means I get to enjoy our lovely Wisconsin summer without thinking too much about cancer. Or so I pray.

Jeff