Well, we are home again after a total of 3-1/2 hours of travel to and from and 5 hours at Vanderbilt...most of those hours in the waiting room...at least for me. Everything was pretty much on time appointment wise. The longest period of time was waiting for the immunotherapy drug to thaw and get to Woody's nurse practitioner. This immunotherapy is called T-VEC...part of the immunotherapy drug is a type of a herpes virus...so he might be a bit contagious for a few days...main instruction that he shouldn't be around anyone who is pregnant. They injected this concoction into the melanoma tumor on his arm in two places...the tumor is to remain covered for a week. He goes back in three weeks for his second injection and then after that every two weeks. We still haven't studied that much about this treatment. Here's what popped up when I Googled T-VEC immunotherapy: Immunotherapy is cancer treatment that directly kills cancer cells and stimulates the body's immune system to fight cancer, such as melanoma. Imlygic (talimogene laherparepvec, or T-VEC) is a local immunotherapy treatment that kills melanoma cells in the skin and lymph nodes. Woody's nurse practioner has been doing this treatment for about two years...hopeing that it works on the tumor on his arm...but it may work on any other melanomas in/on his body. The PET scan hasn't been officially read yet, but the doctor and a resident had looked at it. Dr. Wyman saw no new places...just the place on his arm and the tumor on his left side that is under his arm near the arm pit area...a place we were aware of. I just found out that it really rained hard here this afternoon...we managed to make the trip to and from only being rained on for a minute or two...it started raining twice on the way and we drove out of it almost as soon as it started. I am so thankful that we had dry roads. Woody was told to take Tylenol when he got home as he could get a few aches and a fever. Time will tell. So far he seems to be fine. Tomorrow he goes for more labs...we're hoping that they will take today's labs. But it looks like he will probably have to have a blood transfusion tomorrow as his hemoglobin was lower today than last week...and below the point that the oncologist here in Tullahoma said that he would need one. That will be an even longer day tomorrow! We also have delivery of dialysis supplies in the morning. Busy times! One good thing is that the long trip to Nashville is behind us for three weeks...other appointments on the calendar are all in Tullahoma this month. Time to get Woody's dialysis going for the night. Be safe! Be well! Be cautious!
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