[stanford_status] Back home and doing pretty well

[John R Larsen]

Hello Everyone,

Stanford and Joyce arrived home at about 9:00 PM.  This time they gave Stanford a bigger dose of anti 
nausea drug Atavan at the end.  He is more tired and loopy, but only a little bit nauseous.  Stan says he 
would rather feel tired and loopy than nauseous.  He will be on the portable pump with the slow drip of 
5FU until Friday afternoon.

Treatment today started with the new drug Erbitux.  They monitored him carefully for any negative side 
effects of which there were none this time.  The Erbitux will be given weekly and the others given bi-
weekly.  Stan will go back up to DHMC Wednesday morning, Nov 1st, for a two hour session of Erbitux.  
The second time is when allergic reactions could really show up, so they will be closely monitoring for 
that.  More about Erbitux can be found at this website:  http://www.erbitux.com

The protocol Stanford is on now is the one for colorectal cancer.  Dr. Sara Chaffee has been consulting 
with many doctors to determine the best treatment.  One of the doctors said Erbitux is a good drug to 
add to the protocol.  Dr. Chaffee is impressed with Stanford's good attitude and sense of humor.  She is 
very encouraged by the last CT scans.  Results of the next several treatments need to be seen before an 
estimate on length of treatment can be made.  However, Dr. Chaffee said it isn't years of treatment, but 
rather months.  Treatment continues until the tumors are all gone and then continues after that to make 
sure the cancer is completely eradicated.

The schedule right now is Erbitux on Wed, Nov 1st; the full treatment on Wed, Nov 8th; and Erbitux and a 
CT scan on Wed, Nov 15th.  If the CT scan results show good improvement it might be possible to 
lengthen the time between CT scans.

Things sound encouraging at this time.  We thank you for your continued thoughts and prayers.

John

_______________________________________________________
John R Larsen <john at larsen-family.us>
http://larsen-family.us