I am now at the end of Week 1 of Cycle 3. Chemo-therapy has become a new normal. I am feeling quite well. I have stopped breaking any new bones,
probably 5-6 weeks ago. Since bones take
6-8 weeks to heal, I feel as if most of the bones are healed. It is now much
easier to turn over in bed, and for short trips around the house, no canes are
necessary. Of course, that means the
canes get lost all too often, but the increased mobility is worth it.
At the start of each cycle, they draw several vials of blood
to do an extensive series of blood tests.
The main blood marker they are using to gauge progress is one they call
Free Lambda, Serum. It started out at
the start of Cycle 1 at 1329.3. The
normal range is 5.7 – 26.3. The doctors
were quite pleased when the value at the start of Cycle 2 was 317.6, or 24% of
the original reading. Now the value at
the start of Cycle 3 is 54.1, which is a further reduction of 17% of the prior
value. The value of 317.6 merited a
special call from the doctor. The 54.1
has not generated any phone call, but it still looks pretty good to me.
There are pretty good antidotes to the primary side effects
of the chemo-therapy. It seems like I
take a zillion pills every day. One of
them is to offset nausea, which does a pretty good job. Another, which I need to take 3 times per
day, is to prevent shingles, which I understand one certainly wants to
avoid. I am now taking the steroid both
the day I get the Velcade and the day after, and I take a little round pill to
fight insomnia. The Revlimid is supposed
to make you tired, so I take that at night, to enhance sleeping as well. The net is that most of the nasty side
effects are counter-acted.
There are a few side effects that survive, but they are not
too bad. Something is awry with my
eyes. During the day they feel dry and
at night they generate all sorts of sleepers.
My ankles are slightly swollen, but not badly so. If I have as much food as I normally did
before this, I suddenly become over-stuffed.
That happened last Friday at the pre-wedding dinner out in
Greenfield. I thought since I was at the
end of a week with no chemo that I could eat a normal amount. Not so!
Suddenly I became unable to eat another bite, and I broke out in a
sweat. Then for the rest of the night, I
was uncomfortably full and burping.
Today (Sunday at the lake) we had a breakfast of waffles with chocolate
bits, which is highly tempting. I
succumbed to temptation, and the same thing happened. I completely skipped lunch, yet I am still
full. So it goes, which is motivation to
control the intake.
I am trying to get an appointment to see a back surgeon, to
see if they can straighten out my back.
Even though the bones are mostly healed in the back, it does not mean I
can straighten up, as the bones did not crack in uniform ways. They may be able to add cement of super-glue
to even out the vertebrae, thus straightening the backbone. But I need to do that before the next course
of treatment, as the next course of treatment will leave me without any immune
system. But of course, the next
available appointment is the end of August, so special favors from my original
back doctor are being called in, but there are no definite appointments yet. Meanwhile the hated back brace and the canes
continue to be the norm, which is a pain.
So things are going quite well, in spite of the raft of
complaints above. Considering this is a
potentially fatal disease, the course of treatment is going quite well. I am disturbed reading the literature how
many people end up having Multiple Myeloma recur after their stem cell
transplant in a more virulent form, but the focus for now is getting through
the stem cell transplant. For that
things are going well. So ignore the
complaints above and take away the message that my treatments are going well.
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