Marv,

As you probably know by now, my husband John was in the Phase 1 trial for PDL-1. I assume it’s a smaller dose than what you might get, because the purpose in a Phase 1 trial is to ascertain that the drug is safe to use on humans. To our surprise, the body did not react to the drug like it would to chemo. John would get a bit of slight diarrhea and that would be it. There was no nausea and no shakes. However, we were warned that the immunotherapy might also work against other parts of the body as it worked against the tumor. Your doctors would probably be telling you this. We watched carefully for anything that might arise (like a rash) that was not there before the drug was administered. The other patient who always shared a room with John during the infusions also did not have nausea and shakes, the usual chemo reaction. He lived a long way away — he would take a train to a small town outside of Toronto, pick up his car and drive himself home after each treatment. John felt it was way easier than the chemo treatments.

When John went into the clinical trial, it was our hope that it would help patients who came after. I sincerely hope that you are one of those patients.