Chemo #47 ✅

Happy Friday! I’m back in the chemo chair today. We had a little scare with my cancer tumor marker. Last Monday it was drawn and it went up 1500 points from the previous draw on March 1st. This was obviously concerning since I have been through this before. Luckily today it came back down to almost the previous level. Huge relief!

It is the start of a busy couple of weeks for us. Next week we are heading back up to Mayo for the CT scan and meeting with my oncologist. We are also meeting about a potential clinical trial option at Mayo. It targets another mutation I have called MTAP loss and was just developed in 2022.

Shortly after Easter, Brooke and I are heading to the East Coast again . We will be meeting with doctors that I have seen before in Washington D.C. (Johns Hopkins-Sibley Kimmel), Philadelphia (UPenn), and New York City (MSK). The primary goal of these appointments is to see if there are other clinical trials that I would qualify for. Due to these being much larger population areas, these hospitals are usually the ones that develop and support the many different clinical trials.

Our personal lives are also quite busy. I’m looking forward to spending the rest of today watching March Madness with friends. This has been an annual tradition since our college days. Brooke and I will be going to the Iowa women’s NCAA game on Saturday. Asher is starting flag football on Sunday through the University of Iowa. He gets to play inside the Iowa football practice facility. He is very excited!

If you haven’t heard the music that I have been doing with Play It Back Music through Teen Cancer America, here is the link to my YouTube channel where you can find all the songs including my newest song (Make My Day) that I wrote and recorded for Brooke: https://youtube.com/@RyanDwars1?si=88XQcBdZSGx_C2yG. I’m working to get these and upcoming songs onto Spotify, Apple Music, and more.

PanCan PurpleStride 2024 is coming up at the end of April. Be on the lookout for fundraising links that Brooke and I will be posting on social media in the next few weeks to help raise money for pancreatic cancer research and patient support.

Have a great weekend!

Ryan