ANDERSON TWP., Ohio -- At first, Brad Giesting said his doctor thought he'd a pulled muscle.
Giesting had a pain his his abdomen, and his doctor told him to come back in a few weeks if that pain didn't go away.
It didn't, and the Iraq War veteran learned the hard news: He had liposarcoma, a rare form of cancer.
For 18 months, Giesting has been taking part in a clinic trial at the James Cancer Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. He was given a drug called MORAb, being tested by pharmaceutical company Morphotek.
"From the very beginning, I had three or four multiple tumors they were measuring. I started this trial, and slowly they started shrinking and disappeared from there," Giesting said.
Now, he said, only one small tumor remains. Giesting calls MORAb a miracle drug.
But a week ago, Giesting got a second dose of bad news from a doctor: The clinical trial was being canceled. MORAb, the company told his doctor, wasn't working for enough people.
"I didn’t think they would just call it quits right there and send me on my way," he said.
His wife, Annie, said stopping treatment is tantamount to putting a price tag on her husband's life.
"That in itself is mind-boggling," she said. "It's disgusting."
On Tuesday, doctors got word that Morphotek will supply the drug to Giesting through January; it's not clear what happens next. Morphotek did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
The Giestings said they'd spend the holidays focused on family, then talk with doctors to figure out their next steps.
