Hey Everyone! Here’s a post from Ryan and Brooke:

Hello! We’ve had quite the week this week. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get the Corporate Angels program to work for a free plane ride, so Brooke and I left from Chicago and headed to Philadelphia earlier this week.

We saw the Penn Medicine doctor (Dr. Kim Reiss Binder) and she was a huge help in putting together a plan we feel really comfortable with. Here is the run down:

1 The results of my blood test to determine if I’m still sensitive to platinum came back and didn’t have any additional mutations. This means theoretically I should still be sensitive to platinum-based chemo and to the maintenance pill that targets my BRCA mutation.

2 The doctor reviewed my most recent scans and said there is no conclusive evidence that I have progressed on chemo. She doesn’t have enough evidence right now to determine if the lymph node is cancer or not.

3 What all this means is that I can at least test out the maintenance pill for the next couple of months. The pill is called Olaparib and it helps my BRCA mutated cells (including cancer cells) break down and die. This isn’t without its own set of serious side effects, but we have confidence in my integrative oncologist to help me through anything that might pop up.

We spoke with my oncologist here at UIHC and the plan is for me to be on the maintenance pill until my November appointment with the doctor at Mayo. I will have a CT scan up there and if it shows any evidence of progression in the lymph node or anywhere else, we can quickly move to another plan. If there is no progression/change, then that means the maintenance pill is working and I can continue on it until we see progression. For most people, it can work anywhere from 2-3 years, so we are praying it will work at least that long for me.

I’m hoping to be able to start the maintenance pill sometime this week. I’m getting over a cold right now, but otherwise feel pretty good.

We thoroughly plan to enjoy these next few months with no chemotherapy and have a pretty packed schedule through October. We took part in the Lustgarten Pancreatic Cancer walk today and this was our third time participating. We really enjoyed the nice weather and hope you did too. As always, thank you so much for the continued support and prayers. I wouldn’t be doing as well as I am without all of your support. Happy Sunday!