Another Setback

As I mentioned in my last blog post, Cameron was unable to start his second round of Antibody Therapy because his liver enzymes were too high.  The treatment was initially delayed by a week and he was retested on Thursday, with the hope of starting this coming Monday.  Unfortunately, we were disappointed to discover that his liver enzymes had barely moved.  They had only dropped by 6 points, from 369 to 363.  In order for Cameron to start the next round, the enzymes need to be below 250.  This would not be a problem if time wasn't so critical.  The Antibody protocol is extremely time sensitive.  The doctors are not happy to delay his second round by more than two weeks, so if by next Thursday we haven't seen a drastic improvement in the enzymes, I have been told that the doctors will need to contact the chairperson heading the study to find out how to proceed.  There is a chance that Cameron could be removed from the study and not allowed to get the Antibody Therapy.  This would be devastating!!  Antibody Therapy is vital to Cameron surviving this disease, it is the most important part of his treatment. 

The logical part of my brain knows that I am stressing prematurely, two days off the medicine is not enough time for his enzymes to come down sufficiently to be retested, next Thursdays test will be a much better indicator of how his liver is performing.  The rest of my brain, however, has gone into complete panic mode.  I find myself crying randomly, like a did when Cameron was first diagnosed.  I am short tempered with everyone around me and I feel like I just can't cope with this.  We can't have more bad news, we just can't.

Frank contacted a liver specialist that he knows and he was able to give us some advice on what we can do to help flush his liver and get it to recover a bit quicker,  all of the things he mentioned can be easily added through Cameron's diet - which is good news as we are not prepared to give him any type of supplements or other remedies until we have discussed them with his oncology team.

Even if Cameron recovers and manages to get his second round of Antibody Therapy, this could easily happen again and cause more delays and possible expulsion from the study.  He is just so little and his poor liver has been put through the wringer over the last year with all the medications that he has been on.  We can only hope and pray that he improves and is able to continue with his treatment.

Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers this week and cheer for those enzymes to go DOWN DOWN DOWN!