Happy 2012

The Dougherty's are entering the New Year with renewed hope and optimism. We are still buzzing from a great month of December, and a great start to January. On the health front, I am still alive and kicking......and not leaking!! No new fluid now for 2.5 months, I am hopeful that we can just chalk that up to a blip in the road, and not have to worry about it again. Phew!! I have had a little bit of a rough go with the Nexavar however. I developed a really nasty rash along my back which decided to track my surgical scar lines......I looked like Frankenstein with shingles. Because it was in my scar lines it caused quite a bit of pain too, so I had to stop taking it for a week to get the rash under control. I have been slowly ramping up the dosage this time, and it seems to be much more tolerable. Nausea is also a byproduct of the drug which is not a lot of fun, but hopefully it will be easier as I get to the maximum dosage which should be by the end of the week. The next step will be a scan by the end of February to see if the drug is doing anything worthwhile. The scan should also show us if we indeed knocked out the largest lung nodule with the Cyberknife treatment I endured in September. We certainly know that the CK treatment did something, hopefully more than just causing a pleural effusion.

We had a wonderful trip to California for the holidays. We spent our time in San Francisco, Mountain View, and Stockton. Charlotte is at a magical age right now for Christmas, and she got the royal treatment. Let's just say that Santa miraculously showed up in 3 places. Because of the rough ride I have had with the Nexavar, we decided to call in the troops (Grams and Nana) for support. I can't even begin to express how incredible it has been to have them staying with us. Everything from doing the laundry to playing games with Charlotte, they have literally saved our lives. It has also been a wonderful experience for Charlotte to have her grandparents here every day. She truly has developed magical relationships with all of them. The three of us (Jen, Charlotte, and I) brought in the New Year together. We all got dressed up, had a fancy dinner, and watched the ball drop in Times Square. Jen and I somehow managed to even stay up until midnight and were treated to a magnificent fireworks show from the top of the Space Needle that we could see from our roof deck. It was a fitting end to a challenging year, but once again we persevered. As I sat there gazing at my beautiful wife, illuminated by the fireworks, I felt our bond stronger than I ever have before. We took a big risk in 2011 in an attempt to make things better for us. And on this night, through those bombs bursting in air, and the rockets red glare, I could hear them telling us that is was all worthwhile.

For now, back to the grind, and living our lives. We are diligently applying to private school Kindergarten (welcome to living in a major city) for Charlotte as we speak. This is of particular fun, trying to craft the "perfect" answers about your 4 year old. I don't remember college applications being this difficult. In early December, we did manage to sneak in a trip to Disneyland. It was a 35 hour in and out, wham bam, whirlwind, but it did the trick and was absolutely magical. Jen continues to kick ass at Amazon, and is enjoying her work environment immensely which trickles down to the rest of us bringing harmony and peace to our family. For that we are so grateful.

Much love,

The Dougherty's (Mike, Jen, Charlotte, and Poka)

Gobble, gobble...

Oh what a great time to be thankful. No news is good news around these parts. So far, I have had no need to get my lungs drained. This is a very good thing. To date it has been 23 days since the last tap. Of course, it can still come back, but each day that passes makes it less likely. There is some speculation that it might be related to the latest Cyberknife treatment and my lungs basically are saying enough radiation is enough. My breathing is much improved, still compromised, but much improved. I can walk for about 45 minutes at a moderate pace, but I will take it.

Last week I also flew to California for the day to meet with Dr. Dormady and review the results of the Caris test and plot our game plan. He seemed very encouraged by what the testing revealed in terms of potential drugs that might work on me. We decided to start small with a targeted drug called Nexavar (sorafenib). The drug has been successful with kidney cancer and liver cancer, and is currently being tested in all solid tumor types. It is part of a family of drugs called tyrosine protein kinases, and it designed to inhibit the the VEGF and PDGF pathways. Although not the same, but Avastin is also another well known drug that targets VEGF, so it's pretty exciting stuff. Kudos to Dr. Dormady for "working" it through the system. Within 24 hours I had the drug delivered to my doorstop and paid for by my insurance company. For those of you in the know, this is a Herculean feat, and Dr. Dormady deserves some serious kudos. To get a drug like this approved by insurance to use on salivary gland cancer is next to impossible. I have found in Dr. Dormady a true innovator and leader, who is willing to think outside the box to come up with the best possible solution. He couldn't get over how good I looked for having been through this whole ordeal. That sure made me feel good. Of course my parents were there to escort me from the airport to the doctor back to the airport. They actually went sat in with me with Dr. Dormady which I know was not easy for them. I'm grateful that they were there by my side.

I started taking the drug last Friday, and today is day 6. I'm starting to feel it a little. Mostly fatigue for now (nothing that a nap can't handle). Also, some muscle tremors are brewing and my stomach is pretty unsettled. But, big frickin deal, right? That's what I say. I'm sure it will get worse, but who cares, bring it on.

So the Bartlett's and Dougherty's arrived on Monday, and the kids are going like gang busters. Our house is filled with laughter, love, and warmth. We are very blessed. All my love to you this Thanksgiving.

mike

Phew...

To say it's been a long bunch of weeks is truly the understatement of my life. Where to start? About 4 weeks ago, I started to feel something that I have never felt before. It had been about two weeks since my Cyberknife procedure and lung biopsy but I wasn't feeling anything out of the norm the two weeks after the procedure, so all in all, it was pretty odd. After a bad night sleep, all of sudden, I started having trouble breathing. I woke up with a kink in my back that prevented me from taking a deep breath. I thought that maybe I had just slept wrong and the kink would just go away in due time. That was not the case, and it got progressively worse. I couldn't walk up our stairs without buckling over. I knew something wasn't right, but I still thought that it would just go away. Long story short, it didn't. So on Saturday, October 29th we checked into the ER at Swedish Hospital in Seattle. After a series of tests that ruled out the most serious things, it was determined that my lungs were filled with fluid, and what I had experienced was a pleural effusion. Before completely understanding what caused the effusion, we had to get the fluid out of the lungs so that I could breathe more comfortably. Fortunately, it wasn't "mission critical" to get the fluid out immediately, and so we decided we could wait until Monday to have a specialist remove the fluid. So on Halloween morning, I had 1.5 litres of fluid removed from my lungs by a great Interventional Radiologist, Dr. Fergusson. The procedure itself was very trippy. After numbing my back with Novocain, Dr. Fergusson stuck a needle through my back and into my lung and started sucking out the fluid. I started to gurgle and heave, and then voila........we were done. Almost immediately, I could feel some relief. I had some pain at the needle sight, but I felt my lung re-expanding and my breathing capacity enhanced.

OK, so immediate crisis averted. Now where do we go from here? What is a pleural effusion? What caused this? How serious is this? What do we do about it? So many questions. First mistake we made. Reading the internet stuff. I knew this was a bad idea, I have often counseled against this, but here I was, reading all of the worst case scenarios, etc, etc. I really didn't have a choice, I really didn't know what was going on, and most importantly didn't know what it all meant. The week of October 31 was "bunker down" week and Jen and I sprung into action. After a day or so of feeling sorry for ourselves and fearing the worst, we decided to do what we do best..........dive in, kick butt, and take names. Team Dougherty, led by my unbelievable, amazing, remarkable wife Jennie got on the horn. By Wednesday, we had connected with our UCSF Thoracic team, Dr. Dormady, and had an appointment with the best Thoracic Surgeon in the state of Washington. We also lined up a call with Doc Renneker. Doc was great as usual in helping us understand what was going on, and was able to put it all in context for us. After our conversation we were re-assured that this wasn't a game changer necessarily, and could be categorized as just a bump in the road on our journey to survival. We needed a lot more information before we could really determine things. After a good cry, and squeeze of my girls, I felt my first sense of relief since the ordeal began. The most crucial things we needed to know were, number 1 was the fluid that was pulled from my lungs malignant (full of cancer cells) and how quickly (if at all) was the fluid going to come back into my lungs? Well, today we got a better understanding of those questions.

We met with Dr. Eric Vallieres at Swedish Hospital. He came highly, highly, highly (is that enough highly's?) recommended by both Dr. Mann and Dr. Jablons at UCSF. Not only was he respected for his work, but both Dr's called him a close friend as well. I immediately loved him. He cut the tension in the room right away with his confidence, sense of calm, and total command of the situation. After a series of questions trying to establish my history a little bit to determine what might have caused this, he very quickly let slip out that the fluid in my lungs came back without any cancer cells. He did caution that we would need to test additional fluid to be certain, but the initial negative was indeed a good thing. Nice way to start a meeting. We talked about what might be causing this. He feels that is most likely one of the tumors pushing against the lining of the lung and essentially creating a leak for the fluid to enter. This is certainly not abnormal. As the disease progresses, and the tumors get more frequent and larger, eventually they get in the way and cause effusions. So in a way, our main goal and objective has not changed, we need to get rid of these tumors. Dr. Vallieres also talked about things he can do surgically to prevent effusions from recurring. There are really two types of things he can do. One would be to essentially put in a drain that I could tap myself as fluid started to build up, and the other would be to put a more permanent fix in place by sealing the walls of the lungs with talcum powder in a procedure called a pluerodesis. As we listened intently to which one he would recommend, he gave his reasoning for each. He explained that he only does a pluerodesis on someone that is "going to be around for awhile", and that I was clearly in that camp. I can't tell you how great and relieved that made me feel. I didn't push him for his definition of "around for awhile", but I'll take it nonetheless. We then talked about how quickly the fluid might or might not come back. He took a listen, and didn't think he could hear any buildup, but we needed to do an ultrasound to be sure. He summoned his colleague, Dr. Gordon, to do the exam. Within two seconds Dr. Gordon said "absolutely no fluid in here". This is a very good thing. It doesn't mean it's not coming back, it just means it's not coming back rapidly. I am scheduled to see Dr. Gordon again on Monday to test the fluid level, but if I don't feel the shortness of breath, I don't even need to go in. Finally we talked about the importance of my lung re-inflating after we drained the fluid, which it did, again very important. By no means are we out of the woods, but we definitely are back in control after feeling totally helpless and confused for 3 weeks. The fluid can and most likely will come back, and more than likely we will do a pluerodesis which is a lung surgery and a 3 day hospital stay, yada, yada, yada. Just a blip on the road of life. No biggie. So now what?

Next Wednesday I have an appointment with Dr. Dormady in Mountain View. We got the results back from the tumor testing we did, and the good news is that it looks like there are many types of drugs that might work on me based on molecular profiling. So Dr. Dormady and I are going to become mixocologists with chemo and try and cook up the right combination. We will continue to monitor the effusion and possible fluid accumulation, and determine if and when to do the pluerodesis. But for now, life goes on. I can barely describe how much better I feel than I did before the tap. I am able to go for my walks again without curling over, and each day it seems to get a little better. Jennie's mom came out to help last week, and is going to stay through Thanksgiving, which is wonderful. We are getting very excited for Thanksgiving around these parts, as the whole Dougherty/Bartlett clan is making the trek North to be with us. We are going to have a full house!! And Charlotte has already figured out the sleeping arrangements (not sure everyone is going to agree). We can't wait, we have always hosted a big Thanksgiving, and to be able to do it again this year is truly a blessing.

And finally, I need to tell you about my partner and love of my life once again. I know I sound like a broken record when I describe what an amazing person she is, but she continues to reach unprecedented levels of amazingness with each hurdle we face. I know it's hard to put yourself in someone else's shoes, but imagine what this has been like for her? This truly hit us out of the blue, and we had no idea this was coming. We had just spent 4 wonderful days with the Beckmans from Concord and then all of sudden I can't breathe. Jennie immediately put the wheels in motion. We had our UCSF Thoracic team on the case within 24 hours. She tracked down Dr. Mann who was in China on personal business, and he immediately hooked us up with Dr. Valleries (I couldn't fly in my condition, so I had to have someone local). Oh and by the way, we have a 4 year old that needs constant attention and mothering, and she runs the apparel business at Amazon. The day I was tapped was Halloween (a very important holiday for a 4 year old), we didn't miss a beat. Charlotte's two best buddies from school came over for some trick or treating and had the time of their lives. Later in the week, Jen presented her entire rollout and marketing plan to the Number two guy at Amazon. He of course absolutely loved it, and allocated all of the resources she asked for. To see the relief on her face and feel it in her hands yesterday was magic. I'm not here without her, plain and simple. Thank you god for Jennie.

So that's about it for now. I will update things more frequently if necessary. But for now, remember to savor every day with your family and friends. Hug your kids, spouses, significant others, parents, etc. Tell them you love them. Don't put off something today for tomorrow. Life is too short. Take it one day at a time, and make it last a loooooong time. What's the hurry?

xoxo,
The Dougherty's

Cancer week...

I just got back from spending the last week in California. Here's the rundown. Tuesday I had a lung biopsy procedure at El Camino Hospital. Everything went great. The procedure was done by an aggressive interventional radiologist Dr. Komlos. I really liked him, and his personality fits perfectly on my team. The procedure itself was a non-event, which is how I like em. I fell asleep, and 45 minutes later it was all done. If you recall, after my last surgery in May of 2009, I had a similar procedure done to try and re-inflate my lung. That procedure was a disaster because the needle struck a nerve in my chest, and to this day I still have chronic pain as a result. This time it was perfect. Thank you Dr. Komlos. Next step is to send the tumor tissue off to the testing lab to find out what characteristics it has. Once we find out, we can start to create a concoction to go after it. Should take about a month or so to reach that point.

Also last week, I had my largest tumor Cyberknifed. The process takes about a week. First you have a scan and a breathing simulation. Once that is complete, you go through a planning process, and then in a couple of days you are ready to be zapped. Dr. Gottschalk and his team were able to get this all done by Thursday, and Thursday morning I had my treatment. It had been two and a half years since my last Cyberknife treatment, so it was a little weird to be back. I'm grateful for this treatment tool, but I really didn't like being back in the treatment world. But one nice by-product was that I got to see some old friends. The guy who ran me through my 6.5 weeks of radiation treatment 5.5 years ago, Charles (I called him "Charles in Charge"), was the guy who gave me my breathing simulation and CT. He was so happy to see me, as I was him, and he totally remembered me. Imagine how tough his job must be to try and not be affected by all the people who he comes into contact with. So many of them probably don't make it, and so it must be nice to see someone still going strong.....especially someone whose outcome was so precarious 5 years ago. The treatment itself went fine, although for some reason it took longer than I thought it would, about 1.5 hours. But by noon I was at the airport, and on my way home to see my girls. I couldn't wait to get home. Jennie had taken Charlotte with her to New York the prior week, so it had been a week since I had seen them, and god did I miss em.

It's now been 3 days since my treatment, and I had forgotten that radiation doesn't make you feel really good :( I've been very lethargic, and nauseous, but I know it will pass. It also cumulates, so I'm hopeful that I'm past the worst and on the downslope. Especially because we have an exciting weekend coming up. Our good friends from Concord, the Beckman's, are coming on Friday to spend 3 nights with us. They have a four year old daughter, Natalie, who was in Charlotte's preschool class. The two girls were best friends and they haven't seen each other since February. They are both so excited and they can't wait. It's going to so fun to get them together. Not to mention, we love Natalie's parents too, so it's going to be fun for all.

Finally, I want to thank my parents for taking such good care of me this past week. They were there every step of the way. Two trips to San Francisco, a day in the hospital, listening to me complain, feeding me, entertaining me, etc. I am very lucky and I know it. Also, thank you to the Rodrigues's in Connecticut, who took Charlotte in as one of their own, as Jennie navigated her way around NYC and their house, as I was holed up in California for my treatment. Without this support network, we would not be able to fight the good fight. So thank you, thank you, thank you.

Fall has arrived in Seattle. We are ready for some good apples, and some good living.

xoxo
The Dougherty's

Frantic, fate, and four...

These three words summarize the last month or so for us. First the frantic. On July 15th, I flew down to UCLA to conduct the preliminary tests for the upcoming clinical trial. The tests consisted of a full body CT, an EKG, lots of blood work, and a heart ultrasound. Pretty routine stuff. I got down there early on Friday morning, and by about 4:00 in the afternoon had completed all of my tests, not a really fun day, but in the grand scheme of things, not so bad. Since this day happen to coincide with "Carmeggedon" in LA, I decided to spend the night in Santa Monica. With one call, my pal William decided to meet me down in LA for a night of carousing, and needless to say we had a great time. Of course "Carmeggedon" turned out to be a big bunch of nothin, and I left LA the next afternoon. So what's the big deal you ask? Well the frantic part kicked in on Monday morning when I realized that nobody was willing to read me my CT scan results. Since this was a full body CT obviously it was pretty important. I had mistakenly thought that Dr. Colevas was my oncologist, and he of course would be willing and best able to interpret the results. Leaving many of the un-necessary details out, for whatever reason, he did not want to deliver me my results. Instead he left me waiting till Wednesday before I finally tracked HIM down, and then he didn't have any time to talk to me. He left me with some very ambiguous words (something you should never do) about the scan, and that sent me into a frenzy. I was able to track down a radiologist report from UCLA, and had them email it to me. Now I am not a trained oncologist, but having been through this for 5 years, I have learned a few things. One of which is to sort of read a radiologists report. So on Wednesday morning, as I sat by myself with Pokey by my side, I took a deep breath, and with a wet lick from Poke opened the radiologists report that was just emailed to me. It's hard to describe the feeling as you are about to learn your fate. Fortunately I was able to determine that things seemed pretty normal and the growth rate in the existing tumors was about what we had been seeing for the last couple of years. With a heavy sigh, and another slimy lick from the Poke.......I was able to finally call Jennie and give her the good news.

At this point, we decided that the best thing to do was to have Dr. Mann take a look at the scan, and confirm what we had read. He, of course agreed to help us, and I overnighted him a copy. Dr. Mann, one of the most brilliant thoracic surgeons in the country, figured out a way to take a quick look at my scan between surgeries, and deliver word to me that there was nothing alarming at all in the scan, and that when he had more time, he would give me a call to discuss. Eventually he called me on his way to the airport for a trip to China. He was just delightful, giddy, and so lighthearted. He told me again that he is really pleased about where we are at. We talked about using Cyberknife on one of the potentially troublesome nodules, he told me about some of the amazing things they are doing in drug research at UCSF, and encouraged me to meet with Dr. Jahan, the top lung cancer oncologist at UCSF in the near future. As I hung up the phone a sense of relief and calm overtook me. And then the emotional toll of the last week kicked in too. Thank god there are doctors like Dr. Mann, and thank god I found him. And now the part about fate.

As a result of my disconnect with Dr. Colevas, I now had to find a new oncologist. Enter Dr. Shane Dormady. I had met Dr. Dormady 4 years prior as he was a Fellow with Dr. Jacobs at Stanford. I remembered having an instant connection with him, and had been following his career path ever since. He is young, smart, and aggressive.....everything I want in a cancer doctor. Oh and you gotta like the Irish connection, right? It just so happens he also has a four year old little girl, lives in Mountain View, starting to see the bond? For the last four years he has been at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View but in a private oncology practice. El Camino Hospital just completed a state-of-the-art Cancer Center four years ago, and Dr. Dormady has been a part of it from the beginning. He is doing some really great things, and has been written about extensively, so I just had to meet him. To make a long story short, last Friday was my appointment. We bonded immediately. Call it two big Irishmen with a kindred spirit, or call it as I prefer.........FATE. After briefly reviewing my history, he quickly determined my aggressive approach, and commended me on my success so far. He then proceeded to tell exactly me how we were going to step this up a notch. But before he got into specifics, we had to put in some proper context. We began a very important conversation about the differences between academic cancer institutions, and private oncology practices. Private practices are not confined to the boundaries of an academic institution like Stanford, and is some ways, UCSF. While Stanford, MD Anderson, Sloan Kettering, Mass General are some of best cancer centers in the world, they specialize in treating the more popular cancers like breast, lung, colon, prostate, etc. But when it comes to rare cancers like mine, they are limited in what they are encouraged and willing to do. In other words, they can only be so aggressive. Deep down, this is something I have always known, and kind of explains why we really haven't done much with me with regards to systemic solutions (chemo). The institutions are great for surgery and also radiation oncology, and I have utilized these capabilities very effectively, but I really have not taken advantage of anything systemic.

So Dr. Dormady laid out the plan. We are going to biopsy some fresh tumor sample and run it through what is called the "Caris Target Now", a molecular profiling test. The test will determine what bio markers my specific tumor exhibits. These identifiers will then be run against the entire database of approved drugs (some 60,000) to determine what drugs might work on me, and almost more importantly what drugs might not work. It will also determine how to blend (cocktailing) certain drugs to get results. The "cocktail" approach is what has in many ways cured AIDS, so with logic applied, it should bode well for cancer. This test, for a variety of political reasons, would never have been suggested by a major cancer institution, but as you can clearly see, opens doors that could be invaluable. It's all part of the "personalized medicine" approach you may have been reading about in fighting cancer. And we are going to do it.......hallelujah!!

So next steps. I get to have a long needle CT guided into my lung to pull out some fresh tissue. BTW, I never knew that you could do a lung biopsy without being sliced open, but with El Camino being state of the art, they have according to Dormady, the "best" Interventional Radiologist in the country, who can pull tumor tissue from anywhere. Wow!! And we always knew that fresh tumor beats frozen any day of the week, right? Once the tissue is secured, then the test is run, and in about 3 weeks it comes up with the recommendations. Then we start experimenting. As I was leaving and in the embrace of Dr. Dormady, he whispered to me that I was going to be around for a looooong time. I felt like kissing him, but refrained. He concluded by telling me a story about a patient of his that was in his early 50's. He had the exact same cancer as me, adenocarcinoma of the salivary gland, with lung mets, and also bone mets. His cancer had behaved a little more aggressive than mine, but the closest thing yet that I have seen to anyone like me. Dr. Dormady told me that they did the exact same thing, the Target Now test, and found a "cocktail" that completely eliminated his tumors. I didn't even comment. I just started to cry. Fate, hope, back on track. No need for the clinical trial, shot in the dark approach. I also forgot to mention that I met with Dr. Gottschalk (Cyberknife doctor) and he agreed that we should go after the one potentially troublesome nodule with CK, so that will happen within the next month or so.

Now to the four part. The reason we were in California was that Miss Charlotte Hope May Dougherty turned Four on August 6th. We decided to have her party at Grams house in Stockton. Fortunately the Rodrigues girls were all in town for their annual summer vacation. Jennie had a great idea for a girls slumber party, so on Thursday night she decided to surprise Charlotte with a hotel suite on Union Square. What Charlotte didn't know was that Amelia and Olivia (twin 7 year olds, and essentially her sisters) were going to be there to surprise her and spend the night. The "girls" met us (William, myself, and Will's 16 year old son Henry) all for dinner at Capps Corner (a classic North Beach family Italian place), and we had a great time. The girls ran wild with spaghetti and meatballs dripping all over their faces. Saturday afternoon was Charlotte's party in Stockton, and my whole family came up for the day. Charlotte had a great time, and we had such a wonderful conclusion to our very stressful 4 previous weeks. We got home late last night, and had a car pick us up. As we pulled off the freeway on a beautiful evening, I looked at my two girls sound asleep with their faces illuminated by the bright moonlight. I felt a bond like I have never felt before. They have and will continue to sacrifice everything for me. And I'm so glad that I'm going to be around for a looooong time.

All our love,

Mike, Jen, Charlotte, and Poke

Keep on fightin...

Sorry it has been so long between updates, and yes everything is fine, thanks for the concern. The real news around these parts is that there is another clinical trial possibility out there. This one is for another pathway blocker in a class of drugs known as tyrosine kinase receptor inhibitors. It targets FGFR1 (fibroblast growth factor inhibitor) and FGF2 and it's called TKI-258 (Dovitinib), created by Novartis. Believe it or not, it has actually worked in a salivary gland cancer patient. Now this patient had a different tumor type than I, but at least it's in the same family for Pete's Sake! I found out about the trial through Dr. Colevas at Stanford. I love the fact that he is thinking about me. The challenge with this trial is location. It is being run at UCLA by a Dr. Britten. I got the call from Dr. Colevas last Thursday, and within an hour, I had an appointment set up the following Tuesday with Dr. Britten. Of course, there is only one slot left, and this trial is highly coveted because previous trials have shown some great success in kidney cancer. Because this particular trial is testing the drugs interaction with food, it is taking all solid tumor types (that's me). Call me Mr. Random Solid Tumor Type. So cut to the chase. Yesterday, I jump on a plane at 6:45 and fly down to LA. On a whim, I ask my business partner and great friend Brian Levy (who lives in LA) if he happens to be free that day. Without reservation he tells me that he will pick me up at the airport, go with me to my appointment, and take me back to the airport for my flight home. I can't even begin to tell you how lucky I am to have that kind of support. It is always great to have another set of ears and a solid shoulder to lean on when going to these appointments. We arrive at 10:30 for our appointment with Dr. Britten. She seems like a great doctor, we had a very nice rapport, and she thinks I will be a good candidate for the trial. If my tumor had expressed a couple of more markers (primarily BRAF and MYB) then I would be perfect, but they don't, but oh well, there's still a chance it could work. We learned about the trial, the lovely side effects, and all that it entails. Bottom line is that for the first 60 days I will be spending a lot of time in LA. I still have to pass some preliminary tests first, and be formally accepted, but I will be pursuing those next steps. There goes the summer!! Small price to pay for a possible solution. Logistics are going to be a little complicated, but we will figure it out.

What else is going on? Well, we finally moved into our new house in Queen Anne. The move was uh......enough said. Let's just say we are not moving again, you heard it here folks!! Thank god for Jennie's mom, who spent those two weeks with us moving in.....no way we would have been able to do it without her, absolutely no way. Chartie is doing great. Loves her new house, and all her space. Getting her stuff back from Concord was like Christmas all over again for her. We have decided to give her the entire basement for her play room (I passed up the opportunity for a man cave). We are still hoping for some more sun around here, have had a little tease, but they say it comes to stay around early July. Please come soon sun. We also had a wonderful visit from our cousins the Bartlett's a few weeks ago. All 3 boys and Shannon and Peter came for 5 incredible days. We had so much fun just hanging out together. We played tourists. Climbed the Space Needle, went on a boat cruise, the Science Center, the Air and Space Museum, did it all. We even had a couple of days of great weather. It was so great to see all the kids interact. They really loved being together and totally looked out for each other. It warms my heart to know that Charlotte will always have "her boys" to take care of her, and we are going to work very hard to maintain those bonds.

It would be really easy to just pass on this trial, and last night at midnight as Jen and I were melting down at the logistics involved we almost threw in the towel. Jen had a flight to New York at the crack of dawn this morning and she hadn't even started to pack. Charlotte had face planted earlier in the day and had raspberry burns all over her body, and at midnight she started to cry and wanted to climb into bed with us. I was beyond exhaustion from my long day in LA. I can't even remember what time I finally closed my eyes, but when I woke up this morning, Jen was gone, and all that was left was a note that said......"l stole 80 bucks, I lub you, and we will figure this out". God I love her. We are not going to give up without a fight. Look out cancer.

xo, The Dougherty's

Ride Like the Wind...

So I got my scan results today, and bottom line is that the trial drug is not doing anything positive for me. Oh well, nothing ventured nothing gained. A 3 month scan showed a little bit of growth in the two largest nodules (very little, about 2-3 mm) and no real signs of anything new. Not enough to say that it is working, so upward and onward. The good news is that we stay the course. A couple of millimeters of growth and no real new ones in 3 months is all in all, pretty good. Tomorrow I am going to drop my scans off for Dr. Mann to make sure he has he same take on things. I really want him to take a look at the location of the two largest nodules which are now about 3 cm's in size. Dr. Colevas thought that both of them are in really "safe" locations, and could possibly be taken out by Cyberknife, but we will leave that to the experts to make that call.

So what do we do now. Dr. Colevas didn't think that it made any sense to take on anything "conventional" or toxic at this point. All that would do is make me sick, might provide temporary benefit, and would more than likely become resistant to future efforts. So what we do now is keep digging for something else. Dr. Colevas doesn't have anything immediately on the table for me to try, but that doesn't mean there won't be something in the next few months. There is something that is on trial at UCSF that might make some sense, so I am going to find out more about that. I told Dr. Colevas that I wanted him to be my primary oncologist, and I felt like we connected on that. I have scheduled my next scan and appointment with him already in July, and I know that as his patient I will not be "out of sight or out of mind" when the next exciting trial comes along. In the meantime I can talk to other oncologists, meet with my holistic team of Broffman and Renneker, and pursue my alternative course. At the end of the day, it's nothing different then the last 5 years. I'm living with this disease, and for the time being I am able to live my life at the same time. Can't ask for anything more than that. I do have to find something that will make these things go away, I just don't know how quickly that needs to happen. It's a little scary and unsettling, but I remain hopeful that we will find something.

So we live our lives. Things are getting more settled in Seattle. We are in the process of signing a lease on a really "quirky" but wonderful house in the Queen Anne district of Seattle. It will be really close to Jen's office (about a 5 minute commute) which will really be neat. Charlotte is doing great. We have her in a wonderful school in Seattle, and she is meeting lots of new friends. It will be nice to get our stuff moved out from Concord, so we can finally feel settled for the time being. We are gearing up for a visit from the Bartlett's. Charlotte and the "boys" (her cousins), are adorable together. They are so sweet to her, and she worships them. It warms my heart like nothing else to know that they have that connection. We are going to be the "Griswolds" for 3 days, Space Needle, boat cruise, museums, Pike Place market, yada yada yada. Can't wait.

Here's a verse from that cheesy Christopher Cross song, but I like it:


It is the night. My body's weak.
I'm on the run. No time to sleep.
I've got to ride.
Ride like the wind to be free again.

I am going to keep riding and fighting. There is so much worth fighting for. Love to all.

Mike, Jen, Chart and Poka