"Worst Night Ever"

So to keep you up to date, after Marjorie left last night, Jason was doing pretty good. He even managed to eat a bowl of ice cream with M&Ms mixed in (they have great choices for dessert here). But an hour later, the stomach pain came back with a vengeance. The nurse gave him a Naproxen and two oxycodones and it didn't even touch the pain. The pain was so bad, he became nauseous and threw up 5 or 6 times in a row. First came out the pain pills and all the water we had been forcing him to drink, then the ice cream, and then his sandwich from his lunch 5 hours earlier. He was moaning in agonizing pain until 2 in the morning and the nurse had to make an emergency phone call to his doctor to find out what to do. The doctor said to give him morphine and that did the trick. He was out cold 15 minutes later. He managed to sleep until about 7 this morning and the stomach pain finally went away and stayed away. Unfortunately he wasn't able to keep breakfast down either. So those are the gritty details from his "worst night ever".

He only got two doses of IL-2 yesterday and they continued to hold off on doses today because urine production ceased and blood tests showed increasing levels of creatinine which meant treatment was causing kidney complications. His blood pressure also began the same dangerous decent as with his first treatment. Luckily, we had a great nurse, Beverly, who was on top of her game. She was in the room almost all day long, making slight adjustments to his blood pressure medications, nausea medications, dopamine levels, and fluids to make sure Jason maintained a safe blood pressure and heart rate. Jason was able to take a nap during the afternoon which helped him feel a bit better.

By evening, all of us were disheartened because Jason was only able to take 2 doses of the interleukin before his body couldn't take anymore. We didn't know what this meant for his chance of success and future treatments.

Carol from the Melanoma team came by in the nick of time because we were all feeling pretty depressed. She explained to us that Jason's reaction wasn't necessarily a bad thing. She said that his blood work showed that his Eosinophils were high which meant that his inflammatory response was in high gear. This is the response that they were hoping for. She said that some patients immune responses were more sensitive than others, which is why different patients needed different numbers of IL-2 doses to kick the immune system into overdrive. The number of doses does not affect response in the way that regular chemotherapy does. She said she had one patient that was only able to handle one dose of IL-2 and he had a similar reaction to Jason. She was worried for him when they did his CT scan a month later, but the CT scan showed stable cancer. They did another CT scan 3 months later and there was significant tumor shrinkage...all from the one dose of IL-2 he received. This helped us to feel a bit better. She said melanoma is like a game of chess. They will keep him closely monitored and there are a number of treatments at their disposal depending on what the cancer decides to do.

Right now, they really want to carefully monitor his kidneys. They are hooking up an arterial catheter tonight so they can continuously monitor fluid levels and blood pressure to get the kidneys working on their own again. This will be slightly painful for Jason, but it is really important that they protect his kidneys. When the IL-2 doses wear off, his body should return to normal, but his recovery might take a bit longer this time around. He will not receive any more IL-2 doses this time around, but after talking with Carol, we are feeling a bit better about this. She thinks that the symptoms Jason is having are positive signs that the IL-2 is doing its job. Patients that have somewhat of an autoimmune response due to the therapy tend to have better response rates than patients that don't. And that seems to be what is happening to Jason. (He gets a taste of my world...but with nausea, low blood pressure, and flu-like symptoms on top of it). It is not fun for him now, but might be very beneficial in the future.

Right now we are just wishing for as quick of a recovery as possible. It looks like we'll probably be in the hospital for the rest of the week so they can make sure that it is safe for him to come "home". Terry is flying in tomorrow, so that should help cheer Jason up. Team Jensen will be in full force once again.

Here is a quick note from Marissa...Please join me by tuning in this Friday, September 5, at 8 p.m. (EST) to catch Stand Up to Cancer on ABC, CBS and NBC. This first of its kind
one-hour telecast will feature celebrities from film, television,sports, journalism and music coming together to raise money for cancer research. The Lance Armstrong Foundation supports this effort to raise awareness and funds for the cancer fight and Lance Armstrong will participate in the telecast.