End of May

Last most of you probably heard, Tess was potentially going to get a kidney and stem cell bone marrow transplant. That plan got put on a temporary hold for now but Aubree, Tim, Laurie and I are all excitedly waiting to see who is the best STEM Cell match since we all swabbed our mouths just in case!

Here is an update from Jeff on what is currently happening:

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On Friday, (May 24th) we received the unfortunate news that Tess’s disease developed resistance to her current treatment regimen and that we needed to take a different approach. Though prior changes were minor, technically this was the fourth line of therapy that didn’t work; qualifying her for some of the most advanced cancer treatment technology available. 

First, she’ll receive drugs called bispecific antibodies to suppress the bulk of the cancer then she’ll undergo CAR T-cell therapy to kill what’s left. With both bispecifics and CAR-T, it will be Tess’s own immune system fighting the cancer (as opposed to chemicals that, although pretty effective at targeting the cancer alone, can affect her healthy cells too). Bispecifics work by attaching to myeloma cells and signaling a type of white blood cell, called a T-cell, to attack the myeloma cell. In CAR-T, her T-cells will be genetically engineered to recognize and attack the myeloma on their own.

On Saturday, Tess was admitted to MGH. Though she needed some immediate treatment to restore her blood counts, this admission is mainly to monitor her response following administration of the first 3 doses of the bispecific antibodies. This is standard and done to ensure her body doesn’t overreact and trigger an excessive immune response as it activates to fight the cancer. 

Tentatively, she will stay for 10 days as they gradually increase each dose and closely monitor for -and quickly address - any issues. Fortunately, adverse reactions mostly occur during the initial phase of treatment and on a predictable timescale, so she’ll be able to move to outpatient treatment once a week afterwards. 

It’s too early to give a timeline for when she’ll transition to CAR-T Cell Therapy. The details of Car-T aren’t fully clear to us yet but, at a high level, she’ll be given a shot to stimulate T-cell production, some time for them to build up, and then they’ll be harvested and shipped to a lab for genetic engineering. About six weeks later they will be put back in her body to wipe out what’s left of the disease.

These two treatments are very new (having only been approved by the FDA in the past couple of years) and have been very successful for treating people with cancers that were resistant to the same type of drugs they tried for Tess. 

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Thank you to Jeff for keeping us up to date on all of the treatment information!


I’m at the hospital now with Tess and every nurse loves her. Everyone comes in to say hi and loves spending time with her! She truly has the most amazing and lovable energy that people just love to be around her!