Maryland.

Hi everyone we are still in Maryland and will be until Wednesday night of next week. Everything has been going very well. I know that some people know what is going on and what happened at the hospital and some don't so, I will just quickly fill everyone in.
We saw the Doctors and Nurses at NIH on Thursday and nothing could have gone better. They approved Jon on Friday for the Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocytes (TIL) harvesting and treatment and he became their patient :>
We are so happy and feel so so blessed. So many people in our same situation were turned down, so its kind of a happy sad thing. We are happy it was us, but sad that everyone can't get this new treatment. They are starting quickly on his cell harvesting and have scheduled for one of the cancer tumors on his shoulder to be removed on Tuesday morning. Sadly, he will have to be in the hospital starting Monday night and going through Wednesday. Both of us are not too happy about this, but what can you do. It's for safety issues and to make sure the cancer and pain are both controlled.

The Doctors have explained the TIL treatment to us as followed which is a little different then we were expecting but still okay because we are getting the treatment right?
The tumor and cells are harvested in a lab and clinically enhanced into TIL cells which takes anywhere between 4-6 weeks. After they are grown out into the millions they are then put back into Jon's body, but first they will be giving Jon inpatient chemotherapy drugs for one week solid to clear out his own immune system and pretty much completely put him at zero. After that one week in the hospital they will start infusing the TIL cells into his body followed then by some Interleukin II treatment. After another week of this treatment, he will then have to stay in the hospital an addition two weeks in order for the immune system to calm down a little and get some strength up and get over all the side effects.
The Doctors have said that this treatment is a one time deal and that its strong enough and made to be once in a life time and hopefully put you in full remission for a while. Because this is not FDA approved and still in phase 2 of the clinical trial process this treatment is not certain to work and the numbers are not clear enough if it is a long term survival treatment, but.. BIG BUT, this treatment has been out for a few years with testing and has shown to have great results with Melanoma cancer and so we are happy to receive it and hope for the best.

One thing we are very scared about is not receiving any treatment on the cancer for another month. We don't want the cancer getting out of controll and taking over Jon's body before this treatment is given, but the doctors have tried to reassure us that the TIL cell treatment will work and take care of everything and that it's not a big deal to wait the 4-6 weeks but I see Jon getting weaker and think we need something now. Unfortuately because of the clinical trials you cannot have any treatments for 6 weeks prior to this one. They call it a "Wash out period". So please keep praying for us to get this under control and strength to go on. We will be very happy to be coming home and be with our children again. Thanks for everyone's support and prayers.