Clayton Health Update - 3/9/26

It’s been a minute since we’ve done an update and there has been quite a bit going on and quite a few things that are about to change so we figured it was time to do another one. Clayton has been in a significant amount of pain in the last few months, but over the last couple of weeks, it has been almost unbearable. Radiating pain that starts in his back that travels down his sides and into his legs. He has been doing chemo that has included three different types of chemos, and was going every other week for treatment, but about 4 weeks ago (?) Dr. Shalaby pulled him off of two of those chemotherapies because of the neuropathy it was causing Clayton. So now he has just been doing one chemotherapy every other week. He has been tolerating that one fine, but the pain he has been experiencing has been coming from the bulging disc in his back and combined with the neuropathy in his legs, it’s not a good combination. He was supposed to have treatment today, but Dr. Shalaby felt like because his CEA number has been steadily going up again, it was best for him not to have treatment today since it clearly is not working and for him to go ahead and begin the washout for clinical trials. We had a Zoom call with his doctor from the clinical trials in San Antonio last week and she feels like Clayton would be a good candidate for one or maybe two of the trials in San Antonio. He did a blood test last week to make sure that his mutation of cancer has not changed to make sure he is still a good fit for the clinical trials that are open, and we will have another call with her the week after spring break to go over the results of that blood test. If he is a good candidate, he should be finished with his washout by the time we talk to her and could potentially start the clinical trials by the end of March or beginning of April as long as there is room in the trials. We will have more details and information after we talk to the clinical trials coordinator and his doctor again the week after spring break. But moving forward, Clayton will not be doing chemotherapy here as long as he is a good candidate for the clinical trials in San Antonio. We think we will be traveling to San Antonio for treatment every Monday when he does start the trial (it will for sure be once a week). We are not sure how long we will be there or how long the treatment will take. All that to say there are still a lot of unknowns, but the one thing we do know is that the next step is the clinical trial for Clayton. We do have a couple more options here, but we all feel like now is a good time to explore the trials. They have been having good results with the people already in them, and there are no placebos, so we feel good about it. As far as his back pain goes, we are waiting to get him in for an injection in his spine, and potentially looking at burning the nerves in that area for more of a longer term (not permanent) pain relief instead of only relying on oral medication. We feel like these are all really good next steps because nothing we have experienced in the last couple of weeks have been how anyone should live long-term. The pain has been pretty unbearable for Clayton. Please be praying for his pain and some sort of relief until we can find an answer for that, for logistics in getting to San Antonio whenever that time comes, especially because it will be in the spring with all of our kids activities, and patience until we start seeing some relief for him. And pray for our kids, it’s hard to see him in as much pain as he’s in. We are thankful we feel like we are in such good hands with his oncologist and with his clinical trial doctor and are praying that these trials will bring some good news. We could use it.