SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28th, 2019

The last few day have been busy for Chris.

After getting apheresed on Monday, we went in to see Dr. Shah on Tuesday.  Chris's blood work looked good, but he was having significant pain in his upper back between his shoulder blades. After discussing the pain with Dr. Shah, it was determined that Chris would get put on Dexamethasone (a steroid) until Friday when he would receive a new chemo (Polivy and Bendamustine) to help with the pain until he could get his CAR-T cells back. He also ordered a chest CT and a spinal MRI to see what might be causing the pain. Unfortunately, getting chemo now pushes the date he can receive his cells back to October 21st, but Chris needed a different treatment now that his cells had been collected.

Once on the Dexamethasone, Chris's pain starting getting better, and he was using less pain killers. Unfortunately, his pain starting getting worse on Friday. We were hoping the chemo would help his back pain, but after receiving chemo Friday and Saturday, it has only gotten worse. So tonight (Saturday) around 5:30, we decided Chris was in enough pain that he should go to Froedtert. He received Dilaudid to help manage the pain, but it still wasn't subsiding. 

Finally, they received the results of Chris's MRI and determined that he has spinal cord compression in the thoracic spine region.  It is likely that he has a cancer lesion on or near his spine that is causing the vertebrae to be pushed into the spinal cord and causing the pain.  In addition to the pain killers, Chris was also put on IV steroids to help with the inflammation from the cord compression. He is still having a decent amount of pain, unfortunately, and was admitted to the hospital in order to better manage his pain.

He will meet with radiation oncology tomorrow to likely get radiation to the thoracic region of the spine where the lesion is.

I will update with more information as it comes.

V

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