Good morning,
My husband was diagnosed in June with stage 4 kidney cancer that had spread to his spine and pelvis and also a separate lung cancer. He was started on immunotherapy, ipilimumab and nivolumab, he had two treatments with of the two drugs but unfortunately developed some side effects. He had a horrid chest infection, then developed a type of arthritis which gave him horrendous joint pain, his liver function was affected and also his thyroid. His immunotherapy was stopped and he was given steroids which helped massively. When things had settled down the doctors decided he could start the immunotherapy again but is now only on one drug, the ipilimumab. He has also had two infusions of the one drug and also a bone strengthening drug, Zometa and all appeared fine until he got diarrhoea quite badly. We thought this was a one off but on Friday he had a huge attack of diarrhoea, vomiting and stomach cramps. He was advised to come to our local hospital and has now been diagnosed with Colitis, again caused by the immunotherapy. The doctor has now said they think the immunotherapy will have to stop as it’s triggering these potentially dangerous side effects. My question is where do we go from here. I think we had both really pinned our hopes on the immunotherapy and feel that we have no idea what they will do now. The immunotherapy had been working all the tumours had shrunk so it’s just devastating that this has to now be stopped. My husband has been amazingly strong through all of this but now he is starting to wonder what next as it really seems to be two steps forward, three back. We had even began to talk about him going back to work as he felt so well.
I’m sure this is the same for many people but we really just need a break and some positivity as we are both struggling.
Thank you x
