Injection #6 today. Most of the masses remaining are completely stable and have not changed a bit. That is, of course, very good news.
His eye, however, is still changing - he had something weird going on with it early in August. I took him up there then for them to take a look. They observed some irritation and vein-y kind of changes in the edema, but no ulcers or other kind of dangerous things going on. Banamine seemed to relieve whatever discomfort he was having, so we gave him that and crossed our fingers.
Today all of that was resolved and the attendings all kind of gasped when they looked at his eye - the mass is much smaller. They estimate that his mass is 85% smaller than it was in January. All we can figure is that in August his body was trying to get rid of whatever was being broken down in the mass. I realize this sounds like a bunch of head scratching, but when you’re working with Patient #1, you haven’t got a lot of experience to go on. It’s all a big science experiment…I’m just glad it’s working!!!
In any case, it was a great visit!
My gut feeling about this stuff, once again - start it early. Don’t go through all the other options - it just seems like it works the best on growing masses. Completely unscientific, but that’s what my intuition tells me.
Onward!!!