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Friday, January 25, 2013

Head Games

Let's start with the latest and greatest.  We saw Dr. B today. It was crazy busy. Busiest I've ever seen it. All the nurses were running around like crazy. Too much cancer. Too much myeloma. I gave a little blood for research which means parking was paid for. Bonus. Normally we park on the street, but it's raining today and we had no umbrella in the car, so we parked in the structure at the medical building. 

My creatinin bounced up a little bit after my latest round of chemo. That's normal. It's at 4.46, we're still trending in the right direction. Next lab work, I am aiming for under 4. No problem. We also look at total protein in the urine and percent of that total that is bad. The bad protein is created by the myeloma. And for me, it's the bad protein that beats up the kidneys.  Both total protein and the percentage went down with the latest labs. That's awesome. Maintenance continues. I did ask if there would be any benefit to perhaps mixing in a couple of cycles of treanda, the heavy hitter. My thinking is let's beat that myeloma down even more. Dr B's answer was absolutely not. Why beat myself up with that shit if I'm doing good.  One of the concerns with treanda is that it can cause permanent damage to the bone marrow and my ability to produce blood, more specifically white blood cells. The white blood cells are key to the immune system.  My white blood cell count is actually doing really good. My bone marrow isn't trashed. Yes. There are a host of new drugs coming down the road to attack the myeloma. So if ever needed, I'll probably not go back to treanda. Dr B mentioned that he has a new patient on my regimen. I'm not the only one any more.

Now let's get to the head games. A couple of weeks ago, I had a minor cold. Lasted several days, I was pretty clogged but never felt too bad. It eventually went away. But earlier this week it hit me again, out of the blue and with force. Wednesday I left work at noon, came home and basically slept for 18 hours. That hadn't happened in a long ass time. While lying in bed, I start wondering and worrying that maybe the myeloma was coming back. I was tuckered out. So the mind just starts roaming. Leslie had to walk me down. I had no fevers, I knew my latest labs were good, I didn't have any of the symptoms I had previously experienced. Everything was fine. Yet still I was nervous. I was wondering if I needed to dust off the exit plan. Of course there's no exit plan, I'll battle this thing, but you know what I mean. My mindset is much different now then when things were more critical.  The good news? 18 hours of sleep later I felt great. Worked out this morning, getting in better shape all the time and everything is good.

In March I am doing the Big Climb in Seattle to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I will say I have no idea how I'm going to do it. Been doing stairs at work, stairmaster and dropping some L Bs.  But wow oh wow, 70 flights is a whole lot of stairs. We'll see how it goes. I still have a couple of months to boost my fitness.

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Berenson Oncology Success Rate

 Some reading about my myeloma specialist's success rate. A press release and an article from Targeted Oncology.