James Scott:  

Update 8/7/19. Finished third round of chemo mid July. Lung tumors reduced in size by 50 to 80% and CA19-9 is down to 66. Taking a month or so off to deal with side-effects including weight loss that occurred during the last round +. Will resume treatments late Aug. under new medical group and oncologist. Best to all.... Update 5/21/19, Wow, every time I thought of updating in the past 6 mos. something changed. After the last mentioned clinical trial I entered another one but this time I was in the very first group where the initial dosages were a minimum while they studied the side effects. After a couple of months the low dosages were not improving my situation and I wound up protocolling out of the program. Next and current I am starting my 5th week on a more aggressive conventional chemo program consisting of abraxane and gemzar. Side effects are more severe than anything I have had in the past even loosing my hair. Good news is after three infusion sessions my CA19-9 cancer markers have gone down from 1160 to about 360 - normal is 0 to 32. Other than extreme fatigue, loss of appetite (but not weight) and some neuropathy I am feeling fine but having to deal with lowered immune system and stay away from crowds or confined spaces with people. Hope everyone who reads this is doing well and I still plan on being around for the next reunion in 2022. Best to you all.. Update 12/3/18. After 6 4-week rounds of chemo/immunotherapy the CT results showed that the tumors were still growing though ever so slightly...about 1 mm every 2 to 3 months where as the oncologist expected to see some shrinkage in the tumors by now. Reviewed the pros and cons of 6 candidate chemo programs with the oncologist today and should start later this week or next week on a new combination of drugs. Otherwise, feeling pretty good overall. :) Update 10/7 /2018. I am now in my 5th 4-week cycle of imunotherapy clinical trial. Good news is there is no bad news. CT scan on 21 September showed there are no new suspect tumors over the 50 originally detected and of those, only two are slightly larger than 1 cm – they do not measure if smaller than 1 cm. The side effects of the imunotherapy regimen are much more tolerable than the chemo/radiation I wa...Expand for more