The relative summer quiet has been punctuated by the rapid fire pace of our CCSG site visit preparations. As I mentioned in last week’s blog, I was able to steal away for two days of R & R on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday afternoon we had a series of site visit preparation sessions, with another series on Thursday morning. We are rounding into shape, but still have a way to go until it is perfect. We have another all near-all day session on Monday, and then will refine our presentations for the mock site visit on August 21, which will be attending by many members of our External Advisory Committee.
We will continue to have rehearsals through September, and I intend for there to be at least one open rehearsal open to all Lombardi staff.
On Thursday afternoon I had a pretty busy clinic. Regular readers of this blog may remember my 32-year old patient with metastatic colon cancer who has been on chemotherapy with a combination of 5-fluorouracil, irinotecan and a PARP inhibitor on a clinical trial since January. Well, his disease was found to have progressed last week and I met with he and his wife to discuss next steps. They are considering a phase 1 trial utilizing a combination of cetuximab and nilotinib, which is based on Lombardi science.
These wonderful young people are constant reminders to me of why we do research, and how high the stakes are for them, and for all of our patients. I hope they choose to participate in the trial, but most of all I want to see a day when all of our patients can look forward to effective therapies that allow them to achieve their life goals. We are beginning to see hints of that progress using immunotherapy for dreaded diseases such as metastatic melanoma, kidney cancer and non-small cell lung cancer, and I sure hope that the gastrointestinal malignancies are next in the cue!
Have a great week. I know mine will be rich and rewarding, because Isaac’s day care is closed and he will be with us, at least through Wednesday night. Harriet will handle the days, but I will have a lot of bedtime reading to do. So please excuse me, but I have to brush up on my dinosaur facts and mythologies!