It’s my 3rd week, already, on caregiver leave. It’s stunning how fast time goes. The morning was a little bit mellow especially with all the company having returned home, or flying home that morning. What was nice is that our house’s garage got ventilation slats installed on the door, so hopefully that will help with smells. After that, Fran and Joel stocked up on some groceries. Also, Larry’s dad called and has been working with Alyssa to talk about visiting. I had to bring it up with Larry and Fran together, as obviously something is going to have to give, and there’s no way Fran and Doug can be in this house at the same time. So we’ll have to figure out a multi-day plan in which Doug is here and Fran leaves, whether it’s to a hotel or back east.
Today was the day we met with Dr Goldman in UCLA’s research section, out at the Santa Monica office we’ve been at. He ended up being a very lovely man, who also has a great associate Brandon he works with to schedule things. We have 3 options to look at: 1) Larry keeps doing the current chemo, which has diminishing returns and still is causing increased neuropathy; 2) do nothing either way, and try to enjoy the rest of his time, hopefully not in as much misery in the process; 3) sign up for this clinical trial, which is not immunotherapy but is instead a directed therapy that has been used in ovarian and breast cancers and has some luck there. The directed therapy has a 22-day period for the first phase, with a lot of monitoring that goes along with it. A 2 week cooling period off is needed from chemo, which would correspond to the cycle we’re on anyway. There’s no guarantee this will help Larry. The side effects seem to be less intense than chemo, but again, this could just be for research and nothing else. But I think quality of life impact would make the clinical trial option a better thing for Larry. I don’t know. We are thinking about it but want to let them know asap.
We went to Denny’s for dinner afterwards, and Larry was up for that. He actually ate a half of the Moon Over My Hammy plate with Fran too. It was a happy surprise to have that happen. What a day.
Now we’re watching more Apple TV – including The Morning Show.
I know I could maybe do this on my website, but I’ve found that sometimes these off-line notes end up being a great record that I can easily paste over there. I don’t think I can do this chronologically, so instead I’ll work backwards.