TUESDAY, NOVEMEBER 12th, 2019

Well, we have good news!

Chris had his PET scan yesterday morning.  We met with Dr. Shah this morning to get the results and overall, we had fantastic news: Chris's PET scan was almost completely clean! He only had a small area of activity in two lymph nodes.  Dr. Shah called CAR-T a success.  It is the first treatment that Chris has had that has put him so close to remission. 

Unfortunately, the fact that it was not completely clean puts us (and Dr. Shah) in a bit of a predicament.  Dr. Shah explained that two things could happen from here:

1: The CAR-T cells could still be working and the remaining lymph nodes could convert, putting Chris into full and complete remission.

2: The activity in the lymph nodes could progress.  If the remaining cancer is left to progress too much, getting Chris back to near remission could be extremely difficult.

There is no way to predict what will happen. As a result, Dr. Shah is making preparations for a bone marrow transplant; preparations can take 6 weeks.  Chris will also have another PET scan in 4 weeks (December 17th) to see what changes have taken place.  The discussion regarding a bone marrow transplant will be revisited then, depending on what the results show.

In the meantime, we are making the most of the time we have that doesn't include as much time at the hospital. 

We'e keeping cautiously optimistic.

Thank you so much to for all the thoughts and prayers.  We know there have been a lot lately, and we are so so grateful.

V

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