HAMA +

Well, Eli’s immunity to the 3F8 didn’t go away in the past 30 days, so we are probably going to have to take some active steps to make it go down. Frankly, having this option is more than kids used to have. It used to be that if you were HAMA positive, you just stopped doing 3F8. Thanks to the success of a drug called Rituxan (coupled with chemo), kids are able to resume 3F8 treatments because their HAMA levels drop into the negative range again. This has been a relatively recent development, Lacey and I can remember when kids at Sloan first started trying to lower HAMA with Rituxan and how exciting it was that it worked). We don’t know much about this treatment (short of what we’ve heard from our other buddies in NYC that have done it), so we will have to fill you in on it as we learn more. We are hoping/assuming that it is something we should be able to do at Blank in Des Moines, so that will be nice if that works out.
Once his HAMA is negative again, we’ll go back for more rounds of 3F8. We do need to do a full workup at the end of November, so we will make a quick trip to NYC for a few days later this month to get that done (bone marrows, MRIs, CT scans, MIBG scan, urine test, etc.). They are going to work on getting those scheduled and I’ll update once we have some dates so you can pray for Lacey and I’s level of scanxiety to be as low as possible. 🙂

If you missed seeing the “Eli’s Army” special on the Paul Rhoads show Sunday night, it was really amazing. I will let you know if it ends up being online somewhere that you can all watch it. It really showcased how supportive the Iowa State Cyclone football team has been. Thanks to all of Eli’s prayer warriors. We appreciate how long you have stuck with us!