Outpatient CAR T-Cell Therapy: Advanced Multiple Myeloma Care Close to Home

We sit down with Dr. Gary Simmons and Fred Varewyck to explain CAR T cell therapy for multiple myeloma and what it can mean for deeper remission and real time away from treatment. Dr. Gary Simmons unpacks how CAR T works, why it’s a major advancement in blood cancer care, and what “treatment-free time” can look like when it succeeds. 
 
We also get specific about the lived experience. Fred walks through diagnosis, stem cell transplant, relapse, and the mindset that helped him say yes when CAR T finally became possible. Dr. Simmons explains the practical timeline, including the four-to-six-week manufacturing window, and why some patients need urgent “bridge” treatment first. Then we dive into what makes Virginia Oncology Associates’ outpatient CAR T model so meaningful: infusion at the clinic, daily check-ins, and recovery at home rather than hospitalization. 
 
The other thread running through everything is support and trustworthy information. We talk about why “Google medicine” can push patients away from the right care, why you should speak with clinicians who specialize in cellular therapy, and how caregivers make appointments easier for patients by taking notes or recording guidance. Fred shares community resources that help patients feel less alone (check out the show notes). 
 
If you found this helpful, subscribe, share the episode with someone navigating multiple myeloma, and leave a review so more patients and caregivers can find these conversations. 

Dr. Gary L. Simmons is a recognized national leader in the advancement of community-based oncology. Within the US Oncology Network, he has been instrumental in bridging the gap between academic research and community access, with a specific clinical focus on CAR T-Cell Therapy and its evolving role in patient care, the treatment of complex Hematologic malignancies, and expanding the reach of advanced cellular therapies beyond the traditional university hospital setting. 

Resources: 

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/oncology/articles/10.3389/fonc.2026.1712533/full 

https://www.polygonhealth.co/map 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/239866928407935 

Southeastern Virginia (SEVA) Multiple Myeloma Support Group. Email Brenda Riggs or Stephanie Kailos at seva@imfsupport.org 

Thank you for listening! If you're interested in hearing more from Virginia Oncology Associates, make sure to subscribe to Cancer Care Connections on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere podcasts are available, or listen online at cancercareconnections.buzzsprout.com.

Cancer Care Connections is the official podcast of Virginia Oncology Associates. For more information, visit us at VirginiaCancer.com. or find us on Facebook or Instagram at Virginia Oncology Associates.

Transcript

Host 0:04

Welcome to Cancer Care Connections. Today we're talking with Dr. Gary Simmons and Fred Varewyck about CAR T- cell therapy, specifically in the treatment of multiple myeloma. Fred will walk you through his personal journey through multiple myeloma, from transplant to relapse, and ultimately CAR T. Dr. Simmons will talk about how CAR T- cell therapy is changing outcomes for those with multiple myeloma and is excited about the future of this treatment for other cancers. He will break down how CAR T works and how outpatient CAR T at Virginia Oncology Associates is helping patients recover at home instead of in the hospital.

Cheryl 0:42

Back in August 2023, Dr. Simmons, you and I had a chance to talk about CAR T- cell therapy and how it is a revolutionary treatment for fighting blood cancers. And now in 2026, we're reconnecting to talk about how CAR T- cell therapy is changing lives right here in Hampton Roads. Dr. Simmons, you are here with Fred Varewyck, the first CAR T outpatient patient. It's so great to talk with you both today.

What it Car T-cell Therapy and its Importance in Fighting Blood Cancer

Dr. Simmons 1:08

Well, thanks for having us. Thank you.

Cheryl 1:10

Dr. Simmons, I want to start with you, and I'd love for you to start with some definitions. What is CAR T- cell therapy and why is it such an important advancement in fighting blood cancers?

Multiple Myeloma Treatment and Timeline

Dr. Simmons 1:22

Yeah. Well, again, thanks for having us back and having us together. Fred was our first patient infused with CAR T- cells for multiple myeloma, a specific blood cancer that we do CAR T- cells for here at VOA. But what CAR T-cells are essentially is, you know, extracting or taking the patient's T- cells through a simple blood donation and then really engineering and teaching those T- cells to fight a specific cancer. And in Fred's case, it was multiple myeloma. And it's very exciting for multiple reasons. One, for the multiple myeloma patients, if it's successful and it works, the patients are for the first time in their journey free of chemotherapy and they don't need continuous treatments like multiple visits to the clinic monthly, every other week, getting treatment, treatment, treatment, which has been the traditional way we treat myeloma for long term. So very important for myeloma patients because it buys them hopefully years of treatment-free opportunity. Secondly, it's really novel in its approach because it's taken advantage of the immune system to fight these cancers. And we hope that, you know, we can broaden this out from multiple myeloma and blood cancers to other cancers in the future.

Cheryl 2:34

How exciting. That is so, so exciting. And before we talk to Fred, I just want to ask you about typical treatment. As far as the treatment itself, what is the typical timeline? What is involved? And what is different about how treatment for this is done at Virginia Oncology Associates?

Outpatient Car T-Cell Therapy

Dr. Simmons 2:54

Great question. So yeah, traditionally for multiple myeloma patients, and Fred can tell you better than I can, I mean, they're often given three or four drug combination therapies for six or eight months. Then they're often given a stem cell transplant. And following stem cell transplant, they're given what's called maintenance therapy, which is monthly treatments plus pills, and they're back to the clinic every month for this. And this can go on for two, three, four years. So it can become a lifelong kind of job of having multiple myeloma. And that's in the frontline therapy. Later on, it can be more intense than that. But what CAR T- cells can do, it's designed to be a one-time treatment. And if it's effective, and it was effective for Fred here, it allows them to just be in a complete remission with very little or undetectable cancer cells in the bone marrow. And you don't have to give them maintenance therapy. They can walk away and start traveling and not really be tied down to the clinic.

Cheryl 3:49

And just to be clear, you called Fred the first outpatient patient. So outpatient to me means the treatment happens at VOA and then maybe he went home. Is that what that means?

Dr. Simmons 4:01

That's correct. Yeah. I mean, traditionally these cancer treatments are given inside large academic centers or in infusion rooms tied to an academic center. So, you know, we're happy to report we're one of the first community oncology sites, and we have publication now that you can look up online. Just Google my name and Real World CAR T- cell experience. You can kind of see our description. And Fred is in that paper, not by name, but definitely by one of the 41 patients that was reported in that paper. And, you know, what that means is we bring them here to VOA. We infuse the drugs in the CAR T- cells, and then we send them home and we bring them back every day to VOA. And we manage them that way and we try to avoid hospitalization. And Fred can tell you he did not go to the hospital at all during his CAR T- cell experience.

Cheryl 4:46

Doctor, thank you. Fred, I really wish people could see you because you look happy, you look healthy. But tell us, how do you feel today?

Fred 4:56

I actually feel really good. Yesterday I met with Dr. Simmons and he gave me some points to look forward to. I am one step past the CAR T now. And hopefully the way things are going in three months or so, we'll do another PET scan and a MRI. And then we'll start taking a little bit of a break. He knows how badly I want to travel. When I retired, I bought an RV and my wife and I put 26,000 miles on it in a year.

Cheryl 5:26

Whoa.

Fred 5:27

And I haven't been able to go anywhere since. So he knows I'm itching to hit the road again.

Cheryl 5:31

When he gives you the okay, where are you going?

Fred 5:34

Well, actually, depending on how much of a leash he lets me have, I had actually divided the country into fourths from the southern border to I-10 to I-40, I-70, I-90. We got I-40 South done. And then there's places like the newest of National Park, New River in West Virginia that's really nice, I've heard. I'd like to go up to Detroit. I'm a little bit of a motorhead from way back. But the one thing that I always do is make sure that my wife has several spots that she wants to go. I would also like to take her to Hamilton, Missouri, because that's the quilt capital of the world. She has a quilt room that would put probably some businesses to shame.

Cheryl 6:19

I love it. I love it, Fred. I love your smile. I love your stories. I love your plans to travel. I want to talk a little bit more, though, about your medical past, if you will. Just share with us a little bit about your journey with myeloma. I know that you had treatments before Dr. Simmons came into the picture. So you have a good before and after. You have a true range of experience with dealing with your myeloma. How long have you been dealing with it?

Fred 6:46

I was diagnosed in September of 2017. This September it'll be nine years, which is great. I will tell you that the first six years I went through one stem cell transplant, and then life was good. Like Doc said, it, you know, you have some maintenance drugs that you take. I took Revimid for it seemed like forever. But it was comfortable and I could get about and do things. 23' was a bad year. And like I said, I met doc August 15th of 2023, and I was literally on my deathbed. And he worked extremely hard for eight months that he said felt like eight years. And and I agree.

Cheryl 7:26

Dr. Simmons is nodding, he's saying yes. Okay.

Fred 7:29

And then once we got stabilized and stuff, then he recommended the CART T in January of 24'. And as he'll tell you that I'm not one to step back. I'm not a coulda, shoulda, woulda guy. You got an idea. I have a huge amount of faith in this group. Starting from 2017, I'm still working with people like Xuan, the transplant nurse. You know, I've known her since 2018. You know, it's very phenomenal. But with the CART T, as the doc pointed out, it took about three months before I went back to a remission, former remission, and it worked really great until five months ago, or so. But the myeloma's trying to win. Right. I mean, that's the bottom line.

Dr. Simmons 8:16

Can I, can I interject? Because he's leaving out a few things because he's so kind. But as patients listen to this, you know, things that stand out to me with his case is that, you know, when I met him in August, he was very sick. He had about a 10 centimeter mass in his pelvis. He had a bone marrow that was 100% involved with multiple myeloma with very high risk cytogenetics. And patients listening to me here will understand what that means and what that really leads to. We put him in the hospital and gave him IV high doses of chemotherapy. We then gave him another stem cell transplant right away to just get rid of these nasty cancer cells, and a bunch of radiation. He just kept marching through and through and through. And about six months later, he was done with stem cell transplant number two. Then very quickly, three months after that, around Christmas time, New Year's, he comes in with another 10 centimeter mass on his rib cage that looked like purple grapes. And all that was multiple myeloma. Okay. So when he goes from, you know, we met to CAR T- cell, there's a lot in there that he went through. And I think it's encouraging to patients listening to that that we can help our patients kind of navigate all these different opportunities and obstacles and try to get them to a good place. And then the CAR T- cell was very successful for a few years for him.

Cheryl 9:39

So let's get to that actually. Why, when you saw Fred, Dr. Simmons, you said CAR T. This is it. This is your thing.

Dr. Simmons 9:48

Well, when I first met him, he was too sick for CAR T- cells. Now, one thing we should talk about for patients listening, there's some disadvantages to CAR T- cells, I guess is the right way to say it, in that you kind of have to donate your T- cells from your body currently, and then you have to teach those CAR T- cells to work. And that'll take four to six weeks in the current state. So when somebody is sick in a hospital bed with a 10 centimeter mass and no blood counts and actively dying from myeloma, if you will, you don't have six weeks to play around with CAR T- cells. So my first thought was not that, it was rather get him in control and get him in a better spot. And with the VOA team here, we were able to kind of definitely do that. And then again, as he mentioned, Xuan from the transplant group, you know, as the nurse there, got him a second transplant. Then we got him under control. That's when you say, okay, CAR T- cell is now what we're trying to achieve, because we do have now long-term data that show patients five years out now still in remission from CAR T- cells. So that doesn't mean everyone will be five years out, but that becomes your goal. And that is the superior treatment for folks like Fred at that point. So that was kind of our mindset.

Cheryl 10:57

Fred, how do you keep going? When Dr. Simmons said to you, after you were so sick, that you had gotten to a place where your body could accept the new CAR T- cells, what made you say yes?

Fred 11:09

Well, from the very onset, I had told myself I would always have a positive attitude, no matter what it was. And yeah, I've been in a couple of dark places occasionally, August and like that. But that was one of the things a lot of people said they couldn't believe I could stay so positive. And what I would tell them was, you know, the alternative's not real good. So if you have a positive attitude, I felt it would reflect off people that help me. I think it has helped a lot because, you know, if you come in here gloom and doom, yeah, they might try a few things, but if they know that you're trying, I mean, this is a two-way street for us, you know, the two groups. And if they know you're trying, they're gonna do their utmost. And I mean, I have not seen anything less since I've been here. As I mentioned to the group here earlier, you know, I have yet to meet anybody that I didn't like, that wasn't compassionate, you know, that just really seemed to want to know you and do well. And I appreciate that immensely. And, you know, I just wasn't gonna let it get me.

Cheryl 12:16

You're not gonna let it win. It's trying to win, but you're not gonna let it win. I want to ask you a question about the difference. So can we call it like pre-CART T and then the CAR T treatment? Can you talk a little bit about how you went through that treatment before CAR T and then during CAR T, just to give people an idea who are listening, who are talking to the doctors about what treatment is for them. Can you talk a little bit about before CAR T and after?

Fred 12:45

For the stem cell, they do pump you full of different drugs that are gonna make your plasma work real hard to multiply so that when they put the tubes in your chest and hook you up to the centrifuge to pull out the stem cells, that there'll be a lot there. And again, and unfortunately in my case, the first day they did it, it didn't draw enough. So I had to wait and spend the night and go a second day when they did have enough. Fortunately, they had enough combined that when Dr. Simmons wanted to do the second stem cell, I didn't have to go through that whole process. But that was done in a hospital, and we all know you can't sleep in a hospital. People coming in at all hours of the night. And I will say though that Norfolk General has some really good food.

Dr. Simmons 13:34

There's a plug there. Well, let me ask you a question. What do you think was easier? The DCEP chemotherapy, the high-dose melphalan, or the CAR T- cell?

Fred 13:47

Oh, the CAR T by a long shot. First off, again, as pointed out, it's an outpatient at VOA. This would be my third time with Xuan going through the process, so I'm already comfortable with her. Her sidekick Lee was outstanding in support. And then if I ever had any problems, VOA has a 24-7 transplant person that you can call. And hey, you know, because they told me up front, you're gonna have fevers, you're gonna have this, you're gonna have that. So I knew what to expect, and we did. We had to call Emily a couple of times, and she would contact a doctor and he'd say, do XYZ, and we did, and I'd do better, you know. So, first off, you're in an outpatient condition, you know, they just draw it out and they have all your cells, and I watched her put it in a box and they're gonna ship it off to a lab in Minnesota to make it do better. And you know, you're gonna get them back. And so I went home that day after they drew out all the cells. You get to go home, your environment. I've got super great support team, my wife of 46 years, and my daughter, you know, they just are great. So with that, you're comfortable. And yeah, there was gonna be a couple of things I had to do for the CART T initially, but after that, you go home. And it's just so much easier. You don't have anybody waking you up in the middle of the night. So, anyway, that's what I found. It was very relaxed, very comfortable.

Dr. Simmons Clears up Misconceptions

Dr. Simmons 15:16

Yeah, and I'll touch on a few points. I think, you know, a couple things there. One, I think for the patients listening, they should always listen to their doctor. I mean, I think the doctors are the cornerstone. Sometimes transplant is the right thing, sometimes CAR T- cells are the right things. There's bi-specific drugs that can be the right thing. So, what to do and when to do should really be driven by the physician and then have conversations. So that's number one. Number two, I think treatment-wise, stem cell transplant we have found to be a little bit harsher on the body than CAR T- cells. And I think that's an important kind of point I would make. But I would have a joke with Fred that he was doing good for an old guy or not bad for your age. What did I used to say to you? Not bad for your age. Because he did so amazingly well through everything. And I think that goes, does go back to his positive attitude, his support group. His wife is lovely. I mean, they're just a great team. And that's important for any of these patients. But for any of these patients listening, either CAR T- cells, stem cell transplant, they're all useful modalities that need to be used at the right time for treating multiple myeloma.

Cheryl 16:21

I want to get to the support system part in just a minute, Fred. But before I get there, Dr. Simmons, as we're talking about stem cells, as we're talking about CAR T, are there some misconceptions that people have, that patients have, that you want to clear up? Anything that you want to make sure as they're talking to their physicians, as they're thinking about this process that you want to make sure they understand?

Dr. Simmons 16:44

Yeah, that's a good question. Thanks for asking that. I do. I think it's important for patients to actually talk to doctors that are doing these procedures. It doesn't always have to be me, but it has to be doctors that do have experience because now with all this information online and Google and AI and all the things, you don't know what you're getting back. And how we do CAR T- cells for Fred versus Mrs. Jones, who might have diffuse large B cell lymphoma. I mean, it's night and day. But when you go online, you just get this, you know, sort of overwhelming bits of information and you don't know how to decipher that because you don't have the experience or the background. And I would even contest that not all oncologists have that experience or background. So you really do need to talk to cellular therapy doctors who do have experience and who can guide people. I cannot tell you how many patients I've had in the rooms that have talked themselves out of procedures like CAR T- cell or stem cell transplant based on information being fed through them online or from some other person somewhere else. And it's just not the real data. So you've got to go to the sources and get real information and then make informed decisions.

Cheryl 17:56

And to the right source. Dr. Simmons, thank you.

Dr. Simmons 17:58

To the right source.

Cheryl 17:59

That is really important. I know one of the things we wanted to do with this episode in particular is to help patients understand the outlets available to them. And we just talked about, Fred, how wonderful your wife is and your family and your support group, and yet you sought support from outside avenues. And that was still important to you. So can you talk about when you decided to make that outreach for help and how that has helped you as you've been going through so many of these treatments?

Fred 18:31

Well, before I start off on that, I'd like to identify that the caregiver should always come to these visits and either take notes or ask to record it or whatever. There were many times my mind is over here and my wife's writing this down or taking notes, and we get home at night and she'd say, Well, do you remember XYZ? And I'm like, I ain't got a clue. You know, so I would tell anybody out there to by all means, try to have your caregiver or caregivers actually in the office. I mean, we have such a back and forth, the three of us, you know, because she hears stuff I don't hear, and so forth. So that would be the one thing I would talk about the support is have your caregiver with you. And that'll help a lot of things. I was very interested in multiple myeloma when I was diagnosed with it because my mother had been diagnosed with it in 2013. Her leg shattered in her living room, and I flew down there and they told me it was multiple myeloma. Anyway, short story, they gave her two to five years. She almost made it two years to the day. I get diagnosed in 2017. I'm told it's not hereditary, but I've since figured out it's about five to seven percent. So I'm the the second go around. The one thing I was fortunate is my PCP at the time, when she found out, it was like somebody hit me with a Louisville slugger in my back. And the one hospital I went to, they said, oh, it's just muscle spasms. Well, I fractured a vertebrae in 1987, and I know what a vertebrae feels like that's fractured. So, anyway, she says, I'm gonna find you one of the best oncologists I can. And that's when she hooked me up with Dr. Conkling, which again, I was very comfortable with him. I was very comfortable with the PA he had and the nurse and everything. With that alone, off you go. Well, moving forward to now, since VOA has teamed up with Sentara here at the Brock Center in particular, this is really great. I mean, you know, we'll go for a visit and then he'll say, well, you need a PET scan, you need an MRI, or you need a chest x-ray, or whatever. The scheduler does her thing, and I wind up going on the first floor. That is where Sentara does a lot of these tests, and second floor is where the doc is. So, you know, it's not always the exact same moment, but anyway, I go back to the same place, I walk in, you know, it's like Cheers, they know your name. And uh you kind of look like Norm. Norm. Thanks.

Dr. Simmons 21:14

And uh you kind of look like Norm. Norm. Thanks. In a good way.

Cheryl 21:15

In a good way. That's what I was gonna say.

Dr. Simmons 21:16

Norm was the man.

Fred 21:17

But but it's just been really helpful for that, and it also limits the amount of outside people that have to be involved, like insurance companies and facility support and like that. And Sentara is, you know, I have a palliative care nurse that I've known since 2017, I believe. So she's on the third floor. So I spend a lot of time in this building, by the way.

Dr. Simmons 21:43

What about some of the support systems outside of like Sentara, like the support group, the Myeloma Support Group? Are you a part of that in the Virginia Beach area? Can you talk a little bit about that?

Fred 21:53

Brenda Diggs is the support person, myeloma, and we meet on the third Saturday of every month. She arranges presentations and we hear from different people. Dr. Cross, who is a physician here, gave a nice two-hour lecture on food groups and so forth. Just this last Saturday, there was a Karen Duus, D U U S, that spoke about Immunology 101. She spent the first hour or so talking about cell composites and how they operate. And then this last half talking about how it interacted with the myeloma itself, why why the cells were going?

Cheryl 22:34

Fred, can I ask you a quick question about the support groups? And it sounds like there are ones that can support you either at VOA or even outside. How have they helped you? Even though you have a strong support group within your own home, how have these support groups outside of the home helped you stay positive, get better, feel better?

Fred 22:57

Well, fortunately, I didn't need a lot of outside help, if you will. We had a gentleman named Adam Stevenson who explained to us that there was a website that is hosted by Polygon Medical that is called Patient Connect. And if you go to the internet, you put in Patient Connect, Polygon, P-O-L-Y-G-O-N medical, and in it you'll find an interactive map. And in that map, it talks about six different groups. If you need help, you know, you raise your hand. It identifies as support groups if you want to talk to them directly. It talks about healthcare facilities, healthcare people. And one thing is about lodging. That is an outstanding website to go to. If you want help besides the VOA website, which is phenomenal, and you want to see other people or talk about other people, that would be a good place to go.

Dr. Simmons 23:56

Yeah, I was just going to chime in about a little bit about the support groups too. I'm proud to say I was at VCU for a while there in the stem cell transplant group and CAR T- cell group. And I was lucky enough to learn a lot there and take some of those tools here to VOA. But in that group, I was fortunate enough to be asked to speak at the Richmond Multiple Myeloma Support Group. And there's a patient named Mindy Fast. She doesn't mind me using her name. I talk to her all the time. She runs that group. It is phenomenal. And then when I came here, Brenda's, you know, running the Virginia Beach one, and it is phenomenal. And it is very important for patients, I think, to go to these groups because Fred has had a transplant. He has had a CAR T- cell, he has had chemotherapy. He knows all the things. Dr. Simmons has never had stem cell transplant. So I can talk up and down, and you know I can talk. But, you know, I haven't had it. But the value of the support groups is they've been through it. So they get real information, and that is so important to me that the patients go there. The other sort of reference or group that I think I hear a lot about is something on Facebook. Are you on the Facebook one?

Fred 25:02

Yeah, that's the Myeloma Warrior, Multiple Myeloma Warrior is a private Facebook page that you could go to and they'll ask you a few questions because they're trying to make sure that no nefarious groups get in. And once you are accepted, which is not very difficult, then you can get to that website and there's people, you know, talking every day about their stuff. I had this, I had that. Does anybody know about that? Caregivers are on there talking about it.

Cheryl 25:31

Fred, you're also passionate about this, and it leads to a question that I have for Dr. Simmons. And you also said how important it is that patients find a support group so they can meet people who are in the space that they are in. Have you seen patients who have not done that and it has negatively impacted their recovery?

Dr. Simmons 25:54

Oh, yeah. I have a patient right in my brain right now, as you talk, who really would have benefited from a stem cell transplant early on in her course and you know, didn't seek some of the advice and the pamphlets and the things, and you know, friends online have talked her out of it. And to be determined, maybe the universe knows more. But yeah, for sure. And it's really important because the patients have had it. You know, again, I just can't overstate how important that is that the patients are going through it and they're living it every day. They just have such real world experience and it's it's invaluable, you know, it's just invaluable. So we really try to advocate to get to these support groups for patients. And, you know, since the pandemic with COVID and, you know, there's Zoom options. I mean, there's a lot of ways to do it. It doesn't have to be so in-person anymore. So you can stick online and and go through Zoom at different states, find a support group in a different state and just and go that route to get information.

Fred 26:46

Very good point. If you contact Brenda Diggs, we have it in-person at a local school here, and she also does a Zoom that you can Zoom in on if you can't get away or don't want to get away or whatever. But you can Zoom in on these meetings, and actually all the presenters are shared on the computer, so you're listening to the presentation and everything right on the spot. And to back up Dr. Simmons' point, my very first support meeting, you know, you get introduced and I talk for 15 minutes about my life, how I got to the support group. And the lady behind me, when I turn around, she says, you know, I wasn't gonna do XYZ process. She said, but after listening to you and what you've gone through, I'm doing it. And that's that was the exact big thing where it was a positive thing. And and I've seen different people there that you can see the look on their face that they're like undecided, frightened, whatever.

Dr. Simmons 27:45

I think from the physician side of things, I think with multiple myeloma, the great thing is that there are so many treatments and it's not a one-size fit all. And I think what what we want to do is just have informed conversation. At the end of the day, the patients are in charge. We are here to guide the patients. But it is best if everyone's playing with the same amount of information. And then if patient X, Y, or Z wants to make a personal decision to do something, we will support that wholeheartedly. But at least we know they're getting real information.

Cheryl 28:13

To the two of you, thank you so much for your time. This was an excellent conversation and hopefully a resource for a patient or the family of a patient who is dealing with myeloma. And I wanted to leave with this. Can you share any takeaways, any last things you'd like to share with someone who may be listening?

Fred 28:32

I actually have two. Number one, it'll probably take you a year to understand the whole myeloma process. It really does. You know, all the names and words and that stuff they're gonna throw at you, it's gonna take you a while. So don't think you're gonna know overnight. And number two, live your life, you know, I'm not gonna let the myeloma get me down. But that's the truth of it. And again, you have to approach it with a positive attitude because the alternative's not real good. Yeah.

Dr. Simmons 29:03

Um, well, it's hard to cap that. I mean, Fred did a great job. A couple things that jump out at me if I'm kind of getting information out to the patients. Again, I would say have open, honest conversations with your physicians about what the right treatments are, get to support groups, and I'm very optimistic and encouraged about where we are. I am not that old, but I started in oncology in 2013. And what I've seen in the last 13 years is unbelievable. And the median survival for these patients has gone up exponentially. And for the first time that I'm seeing in the literature, we're starting to think about maybe curability. And I'm not saying it's curability, but I'm saying we're starting to see that word around after five years now, people being MRD negative, no evidence of disease after CAR T- cells. And that should give all of us lots of hope and optimism. And I think that's what drives me forward and getting to take care of people like Fred is a blessing every day. But thank you for having us as well.

Cheryl 30:03

And thank you for both sharing your stories. Very hopeful, very impressive, very exciting. Thank you both.

Host 30:13

Thank you for joining us today for Cancer Care Connections. Today's conversation is about more than just therapy. It's about time, quality of life, and having real options. Car T- cell therapy is changing what's possible for people with multiple myeloma, not only by delivering deeper mission, but by giving many patients meaningful time away from treatment. Fred's story reminds us that behind every clinical term is a real person navigating decisions, setbacks, and hope, supported by caregivers, clinicians, and community resources. And as the treatment landscape continues to evolve, staying informed, asking questions, and building a strong support system matter more than ever. Make sure to check out the show notes for all resources mentioned in this episode. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere podcasts are available. Or listen online at CancerCareConnections.buzzprout.com. Cancer Care Connections is the official podcast of Virginia Oncology Associates. For more information, visit us at VirginiaCancer.com or find us on Facebook or Instagram at Virginia Oncology Associates.