OUR DEAR FRIEND HAS CANCER FCS

**Doug Lockhart** · 12-04-2016, 10:53 PM

Folks,
Update from Karen........please keep Bret, Karen and Andy in your prayers as the Christmas season comes upon us.

Bret update Dec 4

Bret began the 28 day washout period for the clinical trial, was off the Vemur/Cobi since Nov 1. If you recall, the Vemur/Cobi treatment that we had been on appears to only be slowing the growth of the tumors but not fast enough, is not stopping new growth. Bret started going through the other required testing to qualify for the trial, which included a brain MRI to confirm no brain tumors. Unfortunately, the brain MRI showed two active brain tumors, and we found out that this disqualified him from the clinical trial.

Early morning Saturday Nov 12, Bret was having weakness and uncontrollable leg tremors and also spread to his arm, on the left side. We went to the ER, CT scan showed both of the brain tumors were bleeding, and he was an unhappy resident at UNC Cancer hospital for 5 days, came home on 16th. Drs. thought maybe the cause is focal motor seizures but never confirmed whether he was having a stroke or seizure. He’s been pretty weak since then, having trouble walking well and using his left arm and hand. Lots of med changes, and he’s on high dose of steroids. He has been tapering off those slowly.

For the two brain tumors, he had radiation (radiosurgery) for one of them on Nov 21. They treated the one at the back of his head, however the one at the top center of the brain, there's nothing they can do. (However, now I have proof that I do have a brain in my head, may not be worth much more than to grow tumors LOL…)

Since trials are out, the next thought is that we're going to Ipilimumab (YERVOY). Our understanding is this is a pretty nasty drug. And it’s not clear what it will do if anything for the one brain tumor. Bret has not taken it before now since it’s not for people with Myasthenia Gravis (MG). And he has to get the steroids to a much lower dose before Dr. C will think about moving him to that. He went back on Vemur/Cobi treatment over Thanksgiving, and will stay on that until he gets his steroid dose down and we decide next step. We find out more this Thur Dec 8.

We're getting down to Hail Mary’s.

We keep reminding ourselves that we were in a similar spot about a year ago and beat the odds.

January 26 will be a two-year survival mark for reoccurrence, which is pretty good since we were told 3 to 6 months in Feb 2015 if we were lucky. Jan, if I make that mark, will give us 8 years 6 months and 10 days since the first go around with cancer in July 2008. We're trying to focus on being grateful for that. Your support helps give us the strength to get through this.

Thanks to everyone for your thoughts and prayers,

Bret, Karen, and Andy

**VTP99** · 12-04-2016, 11:30 PM

Prayers going out to and may God bless you.

**timebuilder** · 12-05-2016, 06:18 AM

Good morning, Bret and everyone!

Thanks to Doug for passing along the email update. Bret really can use our prayers right now.

**Doug Lockhart** · 12-05-2016, 10:40 PM

Hey Bret........we got slammed with some of that white stuff up here......How are you making out?
Did you see that iManifold has swapped ownership too Bret?

**timebuilder** · 12-06-2016, 06:09 AM