All Moved In.

So we moved out of our apartment this past week and into Aimee's sister Beth's house in Franklin, MA. Beth and her husband Al have been so kind and helpful to us, and the kids love staying here. Plus, with Beth's help, Aimee can rest while I can pursue work.

But for now, we're set to go to Bethesda early Monday morning where Aimee will undergo a series of tests. We won't know the results of those screening tests until the following Monday, but we'll keep you posted.

Thanks for all your prayers.

NCI

Heard from NCI yesterday and they would like me to come for a consultation visit to screen if they will accept me for the study they are doing. If we can get tickets arranged and everything else (scan copies etc) all set, it looks like we will head to Maryland in a week and a half or so. Meanwhile we are moving out of our apartment-hopefully this Monday. Good times here :)
Hope you all are well. with love
A


NCI called this morning (Friday) and said the earliest they could see Aimee was 9/2. So we've got our tickets to fly out Monday 9/1 to BWI and return on Wednesday 9/3.

W

Still no news

Still no news. We are still waiting to hear from NCI. We'll let you know when we hear. lots of love,
A

No News Yet.

Still waiting to hear from NCI. They should be contacting us soon though. In the meantime, I thought I'd entertain you with a picture of Tilly. Notice anything strange about this picture (other than its poor quality)?


Ok, so it was a trick question. It's not really a picture of Tilly; it's of Aimee when she was two years old. We found it while we were cleaning up the study and were amazed at the resemblance.

Change of Plans

Aimee won't be taking the Taxol treatment tomorrow. Her doctor called and said he was in contact with the National Cancer institute in Bethesda, MD. They said they would like to see Aimee soon, and they had a couple of options for treatment. That's about all we know right now. More details to follow in the next couple of days.

Yet another treatment

It turns out that Dacarbazine, the chemotherapy that Aimee was on, had no effect. She was supposed to go in today and get one more dose, but her MRI and CT scans showed increased growth. (But the tumors, luckily, are still restricted to the lymph nodes-- no other organs are affected.) So Dr. Atkins said we should stop the Dacarbazine now and try something else.

He suggested that Aimee try another Chemotherapy (Taxol) next week. Taxol has a history of positive responses from other types of cancer, and it has recently shown some promise in slowing the growth of melanoma. Aimee will go in once a week for the next 3 weeks. Meanwhile, Dr. Atkins will be looking into the possibility of going to NCI in Maryland, where Dr. Rosenberg is working on special T-cell therapy.

New Niece!

My sister Betty and her husband Chris welcomed a lovely baby girl yesterday. Her name is Madeline Ava, she is 7 lbs 10 oz, and we can't wait to meet her. We hear she is perfect, dark haired and eyed, and we couldn't be happier for her mom and dad.