Mamma Mia

Bristol Myers finally managed to track down their senior executive to sign the document and I received permission to use Ipi yesterday.

A friend at Harvard kindly described how it works in plain English for me and the description of the action of the drug follows:

when you have cancer growing, the body naturally produces cells called T killer cells to fight off the cancer cells. But what happens during the progression of the cancer is that T cells begin to express something called CTLA-4 on their surface which acts as a brake on them and T cells are no longer produced to fight the cancer cells. The ipi drug acs as an inhibitor to the CTLA-4 and thus allows for the T cells to be produced and fight off the cancer cells. My guess is that this will produce some side effects b/c mass production of T cells will not only kill cancer cells but possibly attack other things as well-thus resulting in side effects.

I had the first of four doses today. The return to the oncology department is chilling and raises all the questions about quality of life again. I always feel so robust and well compared to the other patients. Tim and I had a laugh about R 220 000 worth of meds going into my port. It's hard to grasp. I know how lucky I am to have access to this highly sophisticated medicine.

The anti histamine put me to sleep for more than half of the drip time and I have been alternately asleep or drowsy the whole day. Mild nausea is here too.

Let's see what tomorrow brings, but so far so good.