3 – JOE & MARY

New Brunswick, Canada

 

JUNE 23, 2007  --  Brief history of Joe

 

· Diagnosed in Dec 1998.  Joe was feeling fine no sickness or anything.   Just a bit of blood in his urine.  CT done and tumor was found.

· Dec 1998 – left nephrectomy.  They said they got it all and he had 6 month follow-up.  

· June 2002 – During a routine CT scan a tumor showed up in the lung and a mass in the peritoneal area was discovered.   (Peritoneal area is the area where the kidney came out.)

· June 2002 – saw oncologist and was given 6 to 9 months tops.   They started him on Interferon (Intron A).  This was taken by needle three times a week but not expected to work.   It did for 3 ½ years.   The side effects got to bad (memory loss, constant flu like symptoms etc) and he was taken off it.

· He went 9 months with nothing and felt fine.

· May 2006 – a new tumor showed up in the lung and he needed to go on medication.   Nexavar just came out so they tried it.  He lasted on that for 4 treatments when he had a major reaction to it and was taken off.

· End of Aug 2006 – after hospitalization and taken off Nexavar they tried Sutent.   That is where we are today.  Sutent is now starting to give him problems and we will wait and see where that goes.

· June 2007 – having problems with Sutent (vomiting/diarrhea/weakness) was hospitalized for a week to sort things out.   Oncologist is going to lower the does from 50mg to 37.5 in a week or so.

 

Forgot to mention.  Joe is 60 now and he was 52 when all this started.    He retired in 2002 to take care of himself.  He was a city transit bus driver.