It took all of two minutes. A local anesthetic and it's gone. And more good news, my latest labs showed my creatinin at 7.08. Last week it was 7.7. It needs to be around 2, but we're definitely heading in the right direction. And as I've said before, improving creatinin means improving cancer.
This good stuff was needed because I woke up with a bit of an attitude problem today. I didn't sleep well, I'm off of chemo this week and next, yet I have appointments and stuff almost every day. It's kind of wearing me down and getting annoying. Getting the permacath out and the positive lab results was the pick me up I needed.
Yesterday we saw Dr Durie, another myeloma specialist. His name is actually used in a myeloma measurement term. Whereas Berenson isn't a believer in stem cell transplants and feels that meds & chemo can do the trick, Durie is more a believer in stem cell transplants. He's not necessarily an advocate, but he does feel it offers benefits to some patients. Based on what he saw, I may be a good candidate for the process. We had thought that the drug treanda, which is effective, is changing up my dna and making a stem cell transplant not an option. But it still may be. We've got an appointment next week with a specialist in the process to discuss if I can or should harvest my own stem cells.
Stem cell transplants is a pretty intense process. Your body is utterly blasted with chemo, so there are some hazards to the process....but I'm young and healthy (funny to say that) and should be able to tolerate it. However, we've also come upon a chemo treatment protocol that is working. So would I want to interrupt that to do the stem cells? That's a tough one. Friday we're meeting with Phan to discuss. Hopefully he can bridge the gap between Berenson and Durie. Two very different approaches.
eager to hear
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