We went to see Dr. Rosen at the University of Illinois today, and he said they don't have any clinical trials that Paul would qualify for. He said the low platelets is the body telling you it's had enough chemotherapy, and he agreed that tamoxifen is a good choice for Paul now because it doesn't lower the blood counts.
There is a doctor who used to be at the U of I and who is now at Loyola who was doing some work with aspirating the cystic componant of the tumor. It's a fancy way of decreasing some of the swelling associated with the tumor without the side effects of decadron. Dr. Rosen thought that might make some sense for Paul and is going to call her to see if she is still doing it. If she is, he will let us know and then we can talk to her.
In the meantime, Paul will probably start taking tamoxifen. He has an eye appointment tomorrow, and if everything's ok, I'll probably go pick up the prescription from Dr. Nicholas on Wednesday. I thought I would also ask Dr. Nicholas if he would start the process for getting thalidomide on a compassionate use basis. That way if the tamoxifen is no longer effective, we would have something else to fall back on.
Paul fell today as we were leaving the U of I. He was pretty tired and he tripped over a little rise in the sidewalk and was unable to get his balance. He scraped his knee and has some pain in his ribs (other side from where he broke his ribs before). If he's not feeling better tomorrow, I'll probably call his primary physician to see if he'll check him out.
Continue to: Dec. 2, 1998
Return to: Diary of a Brain Tumor Patient's Wife
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Created: June 5, 1999
Last updated: July 20, 2010