February 2015 Ups & Downs

February 2015 - Bald living

 

 

February 2015, marks 10-months of living with advanced Stage 4 Cancer. We have celebrated a ton of positive accomplishments after the initial prognosis was given just a few months to live. Erin and I are living as full lives best we can between procedures and setbacks. We cant thank our friends and family enough for all the support this past quarter. Even though the months were turbulent ones, they started out very positive with strong reports for my Oncologist that the new treatment of Abraxane & Avastin was working until recently. Then they found another brain tumor and stopped treatment. We are waiting for our new advice. We will continue to keep you updated and keep it as positive and honest as possible.

 

 

Tons of love from us, Jason & Erin Fine

 

 

 

2015 January Update

 

Happy 2015!
SO much has happened since the last update, I will do my best to summarize and bring you up to current speed without having you spend your beautiful day reading.



Update

My body had pretty much given up after not responding positively and the cancer was continuing to advance and thicken since last scan. Melanoma as you know by now, does not respond to traditional approaches which makes it so deadly, most die in the first 30 days. My cancer was not responding to the immunotherapy and new trial drugs and instead was acting like we were feeding it Miracle Grow! A new approach was needed ASAP! I went from 2 tumors to more than 15 in a month.

We decided to try another Dr. so we traveled desperately to Minnesota and consulted with my sister's doctor, Dr. Marchovitch at Mayo, to learn if there was another approach. We decided to regress and give Chemotherapy a shot. As you may know, Chemotherapy generally has short lived success where cancers adapt and mutates around the drug to continue growing. We took this approach knowing that but also understanding that we may return and utilize previous methods like ANTI-PD1 or another high-tech drugs. The new approach is a combination of Abraxane & Avastin, 2 chemotherapy drugs that has had decent and promising results on Melanoma cancer.



First WOD back

Recent Results

Besides loosing all my hair and 25# of body weight, scans from December 31st NYE are showing promising results and reduced tumor load throughout my body. The chemo seems to be doing what the other drugs would not for now. We are aware that this could be temporary but it gives us a little breathing room to work on finding a different pathway. Traditionally Chemotherapy is not the great source of treatment because the cancer adapts so quickly around it. But, for now we will take this positive approach! Also, no additional brain tumors! Good news!

Final Thoughts
You have been crazy generous with your time and energy. All of the positive letters & posts, meals, chocolate shakes, people coming to chemotherapy with me, hugs and visits have kept my spirits high and in check. The doctors said I had 3 months to live and something special would have to happen to make it to the new year. Well we made it! Thank you so much! Ill work on keep this blog more up to date.