January 2009

Surgery for the radiation-induced cataract went well last month, with a slight improvement in vision -- thumbs up!!

Quick update

Still on Avastin and the tumor's still shrinking...
We welcomed a baby girl this fall; this year's been a nice contrast to last!

Kale-licious!

After some stinky attempts at steaming and sauteeing this wonder-food, I finally found a kale recipe worth sharing. The result: a serious treat!

"Kale chips"
Wash kale leaves and pat dry. Tear into pieces (1 stem might get 5 pieces or so) and place all pieces in a bowl. Add 1 Tablespoon red wine vinegar and 1 Tablespoon olive oil. Use hands to mix the leaves in the bowl. You can add additional seasoning here, but I did not.
Place the leaves on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Make sure the chips don't burn! When you pull them out of the oven, sprinkle with salt and enjoy!

Kale contains isothiocyanates that may suppress tumor growth and block the path of cancer-causing agents to their target. Plus it's filled with calcium that is easy for the body to absorb.

Hello again!

It's been a while since we've written!! Mark is now on Avastin. In a nutshell, it should prevent (abnormal) blood vessel growth and slow down vision loss. Injections and evals are every 6 weeks as opposed to every few months with kenalog. We'll try several rounds of it before deciding whether to switch back to kenalog. After a year+, the tumor is still shrinking...much more slowly now of course, but shrinking still!!

Vitamin D

Ever visited the dermatologist the day after a weekend of biking on the coast in beautiful sunny weather (after being cooped up through the winter)? You might get a conversation about vitamin D, and that’s not such a bad thing. Vitamin D promotes calcium absorption, maintains immune function and reduces inflammation. We know that sun exposure promotes vitamin D synthesis; however, one must be cautious to limit time under the warm rays. If you’re at the dermatologist regularly to check for melanoma, you will be told that a weekend cycling adventure under beautiful NC skies is not the doc’s idea of prudence.

But if I’m limiting my sun exposure, how to I make sure I’m getting enough vitamin D? Unfortunately, food labels probably won’t list vitamin D content unless they’ve been fortified with it (e.g., milk, OJ), and there are not many foods that naturally contain vitamin D. If you want to go au naturel, you’re best bet is a tablespoon of cod liver oil, which comes in with a whopping 1300+ IUs per serving. Yum. Salmon, mackerel and tuna are good choices too. Our multivitamins have 400 IUs, and the doctor recommended 1000 IUs per day.

Recent visit to PA

We were in PA two weeks back for visits with Drs. Shields and Sato. Dr. Shields was very pleased with how the eye is healing. The tumor continues to shrink, though much more slowly now. Since most of our treatment decisions now are based on preserving vision, we were encouraged to have Shields' recommend continuing with our plan at Duke (instead of kenalog, we'll try avastin).

This day of appts was the most smooth yet -- surely due in part to efficiency in the drs offices, but we're also getting used to them! Hard to believe our one year CM diagnosis anniversary is just around the corner!!

For the OM folks out there, there are a lot of clinical trials going on right now in the field of choroidal melanoma. Dr. Sato mentioned protein tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy showing some promise. There is a study in particular called "Sunitinib, Tamoxifen, and Cisplatin in Treating Patients With High-Risk Ocular Melanoma." (Disomy 3 may be an exclusion criteria). This study is for patients who have received treatment for OM but who are mets-free.

Follow-up at Duke

Hi,

We recently had follow-up appts at Duke and UNC. The great news is that the X-rays and bloodwork were clean! The tumor is still shrinking (slowly), and the right eye got another dose of kenalog to help with the swelling of the retina.

Since Dr. Jared Gollob left Duke back in the fall, we have learned that Duke hired a new oncologist - Dr. Amy Abernathy. She was trained at Duke and then did research in Australia before coming back to Durham. Any CM patients familiar with her?

Off to PA in a few weeks to see Drs. Shields and Sato.