Pfizer: We Love Thee

Pfizer came through for us again! I guess IHC did too by refusing to pay for Craig's Sutent chemo pill. By their denial (twice) Pfizer will give us one year more of Sutent for free! That's $6000 per month of medicine! It happened on Feb. 16. I was in New Orleans on business and Craig got a call that he was approved until February 2012. The next Monday, Feb. 21, the one month of pills was dropped on the porch by the UPS guy. Little did he know that what was inside is literally keeping Craig alive and in relatively good shape. It really is incredible that something so small is so powerful.

We met with Dr. Jones on Feb. 24 which is the first time we've seen her since she had baby Mallory last Nov. She first informed us that she is leaving Huntsman and moving to Corvallis OR because of the lousy weather and air here and she wants to cut back on work a little now that she's a mom. I understand but it made me cry...like we're losing one of the wheels on our car that was driving along pretty well right now. She gave us a few names of other GI Oncologists we can see at Huntsman or at IHC. We love Huntsman and will probably stay up there. They did blood work on Craig and the labs looked good. His Chromogranin A is 8443 which is lower than last month's 9161. That's the tumor marker we like when it's low but don't pay attention to when it jumps up to 400,000. Liver function is good too. Amazing with the load of tumors in there. The Sutent is holding those babies back...they're too scared of this drug to grow! He'll have a scan in April.

Life is good and Craig says that a lot. Maddie just got offered an Honors At Entrance Scholarship to the U of U which we're thrilled about. Chase has had the same scholarship and has kept it going for 2 years. Maddie is an amazing girl. There's a 5K Run for Huntsman Cancer tomorrow at Skyline High that Maddie's SBO group is putting on. Maddie also spoke about her personal experience with her Dad's cancer at an assembly a month ago to kick off their fundraiser. It's great to see the kids grow through this experience. We're really grateful for everything we have. Thanks to all of you who read this for your love and support. We couldn't do it without you.