Hold on BiTE study

[Wyldhare22]

My husband was supposed to start being evaluated for the BiTE study but ended up in the hospital instead. He was low on fluids, iron, calcium, and a number of other things and was too nauseous to eat or drink almost anything. Everyday his blood numbers dropped till his hemoglobin was 6.7 and they transfused him with two units of blood. Unfortunately, this was the hospital the ambulance took him too and not the one his oncologist works at.

Last Wednesday he was discharged and was finally able to follow up with his oncologist today. His oncologist wants to get to the bottom of his blood numbers dropping, so is admitting my husband and they will test his bone marrow and do a CT scan of his head to see if it points to any reason for the terrible nausea. And probably “other stuff” too, while he is in there.

As to the BiTE study, platelets have to be at 50 and my husband is only at 34 right now. There is also something called an ECOG Performance Status Scale and a candidate needs to be at 0-1 to qualify and my husband is at 3.

So, ideally they find out what is wrong and it is fixable so he can still do the study, but only time will tell.

[Zengal79]

Tough spot. My heart goes out to you. The waiting game is so hard! It really stinks when you’re still wanting treatment and can’t qualify. My guy was ready to fudge the ECOG a bit, but counts became more his issue. My thoughts to you and your husband that everything can come together. Wish I had some advice to give, but sometimes saying “ugh, I understand how this feels” is all you can do. Best wishes. Try to take off yourself too. I know it is hard!

[Wyldhare22 in reply to Zengal79]

His oncologist was very kind and said he didn’t want to make my husband feel even worse if his body was not up to the treatment.

[Tall_Allen]

Thanks for the update. BiTE can be a treacherous therapy and they are usually pretty liberal on the blood numbers, so you'll have to wait and see how he does, which is frustrating. I'm sorry to hear about all this stuff he is going through.

[SpencerBoy11]

The bone marrow biopsy isn't bad and will give you a lot of information about your husband's blood. Hoping for the best.