Today I started a new drug as part of a clinical trial. The drug, ACY-1215, is a new class of chemo called a selective HDAC inhibitor. This is something that my Cancer has never seen before so we are hoping for a good response. 

As I said, I have many options. There is a T Cell trial at NIH but right now I don’t have enough Cancer to qualify for it. Talk about the ultimate catch-22!  There are also other new drugs in the pipeline as well. Here is an article on ACY-1215 and other new drugs for Myeloma:

http://www.ascopost.com/issues/may-1,-2014/promising-compounds-in-development-for-multiple-myeloma.aspx

Yesterday we did all the pre-testing to make sure I qualified for this trial. My initial blood counts were pretty good but the chest scan showed a couple of new, small plasmacytomas on my right side. Dr. G thinks a steady chemo regimen should take care of these. He feels they are too small to radiate and he doesn’t want to interrupt the ACY trial. 

We also took the Myeloma markers but haven’t gotten those results back yet. I guess my numbers will have worsened a bit due to these new plasmacytomas but we will see. 

Other than that, I feel as well as can be expected. I am coughing a lot and somewhat short of breath. Being back on chemo should alleviate that issue. I also am having trouble gaining weight. It’s really tough to look in the mirror. I haven’t had much of an appetite since my coughing started a few days ago but today I had a full breakfast and a sandwich for lunch. Also, the fact that Dexamethasone (steroid) is a part of this trial should stimulate my appetite. 

The a past few months have been really, really tough. I can’t even describe what it’s like to wake up every morning and not be yourself. I am looking forward to putting on weight, getting my strength back and getting back to being me again. So …. ACY-1215 …. do your thing. I’ve got plans.