Okay guys, a lot of people have been wondering Nates status since he “rang the bell” on Friday. He’s technically not officially done with treatment yet, but he has completed his treatment plan at Envita. The scans he had done in the middle of January showed SIGNIFICANT improvement in ALL the tumors that he had previously had. When I say they were improved, I mean they were literally almost completely resolved. The spots on his lung, ribs, lymph nodes, all of them..were gone. There were however 2 spots (one on his pelvis and one in the original spot in his sternum) where the tumors had corroded the bone, that still lit up on the PET. We already knew those would take a little more time/treatment just because of how advanced it was in those spots, so not surprising. They still expected that with the amount of treatment he has had, those are on their way to being resolved as well but we don’t like the thought of watching and waiting so we discussed radiation on those spots and met with the radiologist. The spot on his sternum was radiated back in September so he wanted to give it a little more time to resolve on his own but he agreed that there was no harm in radiating the spot on his pelvis just to get it out of there before or to prevent it to becoming a problem. 

Once we transferred back home, we met with the local oncologist, kind of planning on him suggesting at least one more round of chemo but he didn’t think that was necessary 😳 He wants Nate to continue immunotherapy indefinitely and there is another immunotherapy or “smart drug” that Envita started him on about a month ago as well that they wanted to keep going too. So, we’re working on getting that transferred to Mercy so that we can get them both done at once, every 3 weeks. Part of Envita transferring him back home was that they wanted him to continue a handful of supplements that they started him on while he was there as well as keep high dose vitamin c infusions on the weeks of any radiation or chemo. For that, they helped us find a center the specifically works with places like Envita and does kind of out of network infusions. He has to travel to Dubuque for that but that will only be once a week and only on weeks of treatment so that it doable and will help his body tolerate treatment better and just make him feel better with it in general. 

They don’t want to officially call him in remission until the scans are clear AND his current tumor cells in his liquid biopsy (which were only at 6) AND his percentage of circulating tumor cells (which was already at 0%) are all at zero. We are so thankful they look at all of that because we don’t want to let off too soon. We want it ALL out of his body and to stay on top of it. 

We don’t know what worked. If it was Envita or the treatment mercy started or the dog dewormer or the RSO or just the prayers but something did. Something worked and we could not be more thankful. We feel so blessed and so lucky. Six months ago we got the scariest most life changing news that we would have never thought was possible and recommended that we talk with palliative care because they “didn’t know what it was but it wasn’t good” and told they see people with similar conditions live about 6 months to a year to today where Nate and I are on vacation celebrating that he is done with treatment. It’s so unbelievable but I am so grateful that I still have my husband and my kids still have their dad. ❤️

We can’t say thank you enough to everyone that has donated and continues to donate towards his ongoing care or this treatment may not have been possible. To know that some people don’t have this opportunity at this great of care, breaks my heart! We are so lucky that we have such a huge support system or who knows where we would be today. We know that it’s not over an plan on staying on top of follow ups and as much ahead of everything as we can but we are so grateful to have come this far and couldn’t have done it without everyone’s help so thank you, thank you, thank you! 🙏🏼