Time for a (longwinded) update!

Thursday I started Cycle 4 on GDC-0980, all of my various blood-work levels are good so they've authorised me to continue and issued me my next month's supply.

My white blood cell count is slightly high, but has been throughout this trial and is probably related to prior chemotherapy. I�m slightly anaemic, but only slightly and they are not concerned. My potassium, which was slightly low two weeks ago, has rebounded. Basically no issues.

I feel generally the same, so 'stable'. No scans today (other than an ECG, which was fine) so won't know more until two weeks from now when I do have another CT scan.

I asked a few questions and had the following answers:

1) By what mechanism does this drug cause weight loss? They don't really know - it's more of a case that this has been observed in some patients taking the drug. It was noted that metastatic cancer in and of itself can cause weight loss. It's also possible that because this drug works by inhibiting certain biological 'channels' that this cancer relies on, this same effect might block my ability to uptake/process glucose, which is why they monitor my blood sugar, in case of elevation. So far this has not happened to me. So if any weight loss is even caused by this drug, it�s at a cellular level and has nothing to do with the bugs in my gut (as in the use of antibiotics that kill off your good bugs).

2) Why must I fast before and after I take this drug? Simply because they haven�t done the food-interaction studies with this drug and don�t know what effect this might have.

3) I asked about my minor non-productive �asthmatic cough� and was told that this is a common inflammatory reaction to the kind/location of cancer I have. So, it�s just the new me.

4) I asked about my sense that while bicycling to work I�m not able to process quite as much air, and was reminded that while this drug appears to have halted the cancer, it remains true that my left lung is effectively not as large as it was, due to �pleural effusion� at the base - that�s fluid accumulation and cancer in general. One�s lung usually has this long pointy bit that extends down the (I think) outside of your torso, and mine�s sort of squeezed off. So likely this sense of reduced athletic capacity is simply down to this, my lung is not as voluminous as it once was.

5) Last weekend while motorcycling in inappropriate clothing I got very chilled and had a first-time episode of Renaud�s Syndrome, where the blood vessels in your fingers spasm and squeeze the blood out of your fingers in response to vibration, turning them white! They don�t know if this could be related to this drug, but said as a one-time occurrence with very good reason (chilled on a vibrating motorcycle) in bears monitoring but nothing more.

6) Lastly, I had heard that another patient had been on this drug for three years but then had to end the trial, and I asked what happened. In that patient�s case the cancer changed and the drug stopped working. Some people never see any benefit, or only a very short-lived benefit. In my case this is the start of month 4 and it appears to be working. There are no guarantees in any of this.

Onward Through the Fog!

Hugs,

-Seth