After the CT Scan results, Dr. Weisman visited with us about options for Dick. He recommend that Dick get off chemo so that he could have a better quality of life. He also said that he didn't think Dick would last any longer than a month to less then a year without the chemo.
The week before, Dick had visited with one of the doctors that has seen Dick at the Huntsman since 2009. This doctor is always so positive and encouraging. Dick had asked him if he should have surgery on his spine in hopes of getting the use of his right arm back. He told us that if Dick wasn't going to be here for another year, why put himself through that surgery. Feeling uncertain of what he meant, I asked him how much longer he thought Dick had. He said that as fast as the cancer was progressing he didn't have a year left to live.
After we left the office we both started crying because they had never talked to us about how much time Dick has left. I told Dick that I didn't want to know how much time. He said, "So why did you ask that question Sayda!" He was feeling very hurt. I told Dick that when the doctor made that comment about not having the surgery because he wasn't going to be here in a year, I was feeling confused and wanted to make sure that's what he was meaning. Then we both held each other and Dick said,
"I'm glad you asked because after his comment I was confused and wanted to clarify it too.
When Dick first started chemotherapy in 2013, there was a standard chemo that they combined with another chemo for patients with sarcoma. They both were very toxic. The only other chemo they had for sarcoma was one they offered with a clinical trial. Because the standard chemo was so toxic on the heart and because Dick had a heart attack in 2007, we went with the clinical trial because they told us that it wasn't toxic on the heart. He did well on this chemo for 2 1/2 years. The tumors never disappeared but they didn't grow or spread. The reason they asked him to stop treatment was because he was getting so much fluid around his lungs and heart.
Four months later when his tumors started growing again, there was a new chemo from Europe that had just been approved by the FDA a few weeks before. It was a 24 hour infusion and he had to be admitted to get it. He was on it for exactly a year when they told us his tumors disappeared. 6 weeks later the scans showed the tumors started growing again and he was put back on that same chemo but after 2 cycles exactly 6 weeks later, the scans showed that the chemo had run it's course. The tumors were not only growing but they were spreading. The new doctor was hoping that Dick would choose to stop treatment and enjoy the time he had left. He told us that sometimes you live longer without the chemo. Dick refused to just do nothing so they put him on a different chemo and basically told us that it wouldn't do anything for the tumors but they hoped they would quit spreading and growing. That chemo made him so sick. His bone marrow couldn't tolerate it at all and he was needing blood transfusions constantly. After 8 weeks on that chemo, the scans showed that the tumors had spread quite a bit and had gotten pretty large. After this they wanted to put him on an oral chemo because it wouldn't make him as sick and because Dick did not want to stop treatment. Our insurance refused to pay. The reason was because there was no proof it would help his type of cancer. I was feeling helpless like they had given up on my husband.
Remember that standard chemo???
The one they never mentioned again because of the toxicity.
That standard chemo just popped in head.
The nurse was trying to get approval for the oral chemo from our insurance and again they said no. The nurse talked with the company that makes the chemo and they said they would give it to Dick. All he had to do was sign a consent.
When the nurse went to get the consent, I asked the doctor and the PA why they couldn't give him the standard chemo, Doxorubicin? They told us that his heart wasn't strong enough. I told them he had just had an echo (June 1st) and it showed his heart was pumping strong. The PA said that they weren't combining it with another toxic chemo but since October, they are now combining it with an antibody.
So now Dick is on the Doxorubicin/antibody the 1st week.
The antibody the 2nd week.
An off week the 3rd week.
That is a 21 day cycle.
They want to do 2 cycles and scan him in 7 weeks.
😊 Yay! His WBC is a different story. It's never been this low. Its 1.8! 
😬 Super low!!! Those are his disease fighting cells. When someone's white blood cell count is low, his immune system isn't as strong as usual and he's at increased risk of infection, a condition known as neutropenia. The lower his white blood cell count is -- and the longer it stays low -- the higher the risk that he'll get sick or contract some type of infection. They can still give him his treatment because today he doesn't get the chemo. 
