July 7th - Tests and appointments

Hi everyone,

Updates:
1. I have another PET/CT scheduled for today. Then I meet w/ Dr. Kaplan on Thursday to go over the results and discuss a clinical trial that was just proposed to us.
The new trial is a phase I/II trial to evaluate cellular adoptive immunotherapy using T-Cell clones for patients with metastatic melanoma. I gave blood back in Feb, prior to all my treatments and they have cloned my white blood cells and now will put them back into me with a couple other drugs (low doses of chemo & IL-2). There are a few more tests that I need to take to ensure I qualify (brain MRI / Eye test) and we have to discuss the use of IL-2 and see if that is a necessary part of the trial, as my liver doesn't fair well with it. If we do not do this trial, I will continue with the GM-CSF shots on July 17th for 2 more weeks, either way I will still be able to do the ipilimumab trial, once it comes to the UW later this year.

2. Both girls went to the dermatologist in June. Alexa (10 yrs) had to have a very small mole shaved off from her inner right thigh It was not cancer, yet a moderately atypical mole that they want to fully remove. So we meet with the plastic surgeon on Wed. July 8th to discuss the procedure and recovery time. Kourtney was clear. :-)

I will update the blog at the end of the week when we know more on all topics :-)
Thanks for your support!
~Keri