Dearest friends and family, we can’t thank you enough for your support, thoughts and prayers. April is resting now, with very little in the way of waking moments.

Sunday’s party was the most amazing thing any of us have ever witnessed. One would think that putting together an invitation list of around 80 people, plus party preparations including 3 wedding tents, 2 Cajun shrimp boils, and a tropical island theme including music, sand beach, palm trees, monkeys, parrots and tikis would take months to prepare.

April’s friends and family put it together in less than 24 hours! “That was nicer than most wedding receptions I’ve been to” was a comment I heard from a couple different people – and I wasn’t soliciting feedback.

Two days later, we’re just trying to keep April comfortable and without too much pain and lots of peaceful rest.

The experience has been, of course, hard for all of us. But oh the difference friends and family do make. We love you so much. Thank you.

I’ll continue to keep you posted as I’m able.

Mac & April

This morning Jeniffer Pickwell, the Nurse Practitioner working with Dr. Gharavi, came by to say that April was stabilized enough to go home.  Yeah!

We’re not completely home – actually, we’re visiting with April’s parents for now.  Paul and Barbara’s home is just 5 minutes away from St. Mary’s North where April was admitted, and Barbara can stay home with April to help take care of her while I go back to work.  April and I will go back home when she’s a bit more stable than she currently is.

Her liver is still very much under attack, so we’re not out of the woods yet, but we didn’t know if April would be able to leave the hospital at all, so for her to have stabilized so quickly is a real God Send.

And speaking of God Sends, there’s no end to the amount of praise that I could offer to you, our beloved friends and family: churches, co-workers, life-long friends and all points in between.  We are so very blessed to have you.

That’s all for now.  We love you!

Mac &  April

Today was, all in all, a much better day than the last couple days for April. She was feeling better, and her color has improved a little bit. We’re still in a very precarious position, but we’re pleased to have had a good day, and we’re looking forward to Dr. Gharavi’s visit tomorrow.

We’ve had so many wonderful visits with family and friends, and a couple babies. You’re such an awesome support for us. Thank you.

I’ll keep you posted.

Love,

Mac & April

Hello All – we don’t know much at this point in time. April’s liver functions are still dangerously low, with little or no change in levels. If the chemo works, it’ll be in the next couple days.

Dr. Gharavi said a successful intervention would be if we got April back to the normal liver functions she had 2 months ago. So that’s what we’re hoping for.

In the mean time, April is resting and we’re making sure she’s comfortable and well-loved. Please stay tuned to this blog for further updates. Love you all,

Mac & April

Beloved friends and family, I’m writing to inform you that April is experiencing the early stages of liver failure. She will have chemotherapy tomorrow to try to stop the cancer’s assault on her liver.

We’re with family now, and praying for a successful treatment tomorrow. We love you, and will keep you informed.

Mac & April

Hi All,

Day before yesterday, April started a new chemo drug here in Knoxville as a stopgap, while we’re waiting for a promising clinical trial to start a new cohort.  We’re glad to be getting back on track – April’s last treatment was June 26th, so it was time.

This new treatment involves the use of two second tier chemo drugs that aren’t very effective for April’s disease alone, but that have shown promise when used together.  The side effects are moderately strong, so the combination does appear to be potent.

There’s nothing much more to report right now, other than we’re still loving each other, enjoying life and we still totally are amazed by your love and support.

Enjoy these last weeks of summer, and our love and appreciation to everyone!

Mac & April

Hi Friends!

I’m sorry it’s been such a long time since I last shared an update with you; I’ve got a lot to catch you up on!

When I last posted, April had come to the end of the first-tier chemotherapy drugs approved by the FDA for breast cancer or metastatic breast cancer, and we were preparing for the first clinical trial.

April went through two three-week cycles of the trial, and was pretty miserable through the whole thing. Perhaps more so than the others – it’s hard to say – this one was pretty hard on her.

When we met with Dr. Burris to review the results of the first two cycles of the trial on Monday of last week, we got the both good and bad news that her trial hadn’t been effective at treating her cancer. That was a blessing because April was really struggling. Of course, it also sucked, because we’d love to have had a positive result on the first repeat visit with Dr. Burris.

But onward and upward. April is moving into clinical trials for the newest cancer therapies – including (we hope) PARP-1 Inhibitors – cancer drugs that have been on the news lately, being touted as new miracle cancer drugs. Most of the new drugs that we’ve talked about have been “biologics” (including PARP), meaning their healing qualities come from manipulating biological pathways rather than chemical attacks on cells. It’s some very cool, exciting stuff.

Regarding how April is doing, she has been off of the trial for a little over a week now, and she’s still recovering. We had a brief stay in the hospital to re-hydrate her and raise her immune system, and when we left the hospital Thursday, she was feeling MUCH better.

So here we are on Tuesday night. Dr. Gharavi wants to see April tomorrow to follow up on her hospital stay and continued dehydration. We’re going to work hard to keep her hydrated, fed, happy…generally speaking, we want April to be her regular, awesome, beautiful (are you reading this, honey??), brilliant, brave…you get the picture…self.

We are calling all visitors! Maybe not everyone at once!  But if you’re ever thinking about visiting Knoxville, or ya live in K-town or the area and want to have dinner or play a game or just chat, give us a shout. We’d love to see you.

One last piece of difficult news: I’m coming to the end of my FMLA leave at my job, which could make it difficult for me to stay there and maintain my benefits. So if you know someone who offers benefits and who is looking for a top-flight internet marketer (not to toot my own horn, but I am one!), I would be interested in talking to them.

Love to each and every one of you — you’re a special group of friends and family.

Mac & April

Hi All -

April and I had some bad news when we met with Dr. Gharavi Monday. We’d been expecting, or at least hoping, that we would get good news regarding a decrease in size of April’s tumors, because her tumor marker tests were showing a nearly 50% drop.

Unfortunately, the CT scan came back with a 25% increase in the size of April’s tumors over the last 8 weeks. So it turns out the Navelbine wasn’t working after all.

Dr. Gharavi said that Navelbine was really the last of the front-line drugs for her disease, and that it’s time for April to start trying stage 1 clinical trials of new chemo drugs.  We discussed two different options for trying clinical trials: MD Anderson in Houston and Sarah Cannon in Nashville.  MD Anderson has the most clinical trials of any cancer center in the US, and Sarah Cannon has the 2nd most clinical trials.

Dr. Gharavi said the difference would be in the amount of personal attention given – that Sarah Cannon would be able to offer much greater personal attention.  And, since it’s much closer, it would be easier to get through the trial in terms of travel time and expense.  So we decided to try Sarah Cannon first.

I’m happy to report that this has already turned out to be a good decision: Dr. Gharavi’s office got April an appt for Tuesday of next week with Dr. Howard Burris, Director of Drug Development at the cancer center!  Out of 50+ MDs at the Center, Dr. Burris is one of only three Oncolgists with a Director position, and he isn’t even one of the ones whose profile says he’s accepting new patients!  So we feel like this is a good move forward for April, and that they’re already showing April the personal attention that Dr. Gharavi said the would offer.

Both April and I wish that we could be sharing better news with you — that her tumors were shrinking at fast clip, or something along those lines.  We’re optimistic that this new direction will bring good opportunities for improvement very soon.

Much love to all of you, and we’ll keep you posted!

Mac

Hi All,

I wanted to give you a quick update on April: we went to Dr. Gharavi’s office this morning to find out how successful Adriamycin, which April has had 2 doses of, has been.

Because April is losing her hair again, which hadn’t happened since she got off Abraxane and Avastin 8 months ago, we were hopeful that Adriamycin was doing a good job. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case; April’s tumors continued to grow in size over the past 5 weeks on Adriamycin.

So, we’re moving on. Thursday of next week, April will begin taking Navelbine, once a week with a week off after every 2nd or 3rd dose, depending on how well April takes to it.  Dr. Gharavi also said that April needs to start taking Neulasta again, to help her white blood cell count stay up.

This is, of course, frustrating and disappointing for April and me.  But we’re sticking with the plan to get April better.  We’re staying positive, enjoying being in love, and we’re so very happy to have such awesome friends and family.

Much love to all,

Mac & April

April is in her “off week” with Ixempra this week, which means she will hopefully be feeling pretty good by the end of the week.  She’s been a little wiped out lately, but April has remained positive as ever, and still determined to continue working full time at Pellissippi.

We met with Dr. Gharavi last Tuesday, and should be hearing back from him any time regarding April’s tumor marker results.  Since this is the first time April’s had objective feedback on how her disease is being managed in almost two months, we’re  really looking forward to getting some good news.

We’ll keep you posted on that.

An Invitation

I’d love to hear from friends and family posting to the blog about optimism, hope, jokes, or anything else along those lines!  If you can post comments on the blog, you can also enter a post like this one I’m typing now.  All you have to do is go to bartine.com/wp-admin/ and enter the username and password you created to be able to comment.

Much love to everyone,

Mac & April