Sibs,
This week marks the end of Chemotherapy Cycle 2, and I am happy to report good progress with the chemo and only minor problems with side effects. My lab work from Tuesday came back with “normals” for all the key blood indicators, so there are no issues to prevent me from beginning Cycle 3 in next Tuesday’s scheduled rotation.
We were contacted by the Bone Marrow Transplant Team this week, and have a consult (“Meet and Greet”) visit with them on June 26th. By that date, I will have completed 3 Chemo Cycles and – assuming the results continue to be positive – we will tentatively schedule my hospitalization for the transplant. The clinician in the Myeloma Center thinks that I may undergo just one more Chemo Cycle (only 4 cycles instead of the expected 8!) and then go for transplant. August? This is much sooner than expected. No… I don’t know anything about the “self-harvested stem cells” versus “sibling donor stem cells” decision yet – but will let you know as soon as a there is anything to share.
In my last Update, I mentioned that my Myeloma probably became active 2 years ago – based on its spread through multiple bones and the number of hot spots indicated on the CT scans. Several people asked me if the medical community knows what causes Myeloma in the first place, and specifically what incident cause it to become active in me. We don’t know the answer to either of those questions… but the Associated Press ran a news story last Friday “Rare Cancer Found in WTC Workers” describing an outbreak of Multiple Myeloma in the rescue and construction workers involved in the World Trade Center 9/11 disaster. If you Google that title, you will find related news articles about these young Myeloma patients. Perhaps this affected population will aid researchers in finding the root cause of this disease?
That’s all from here, much shorter Update than 3 weeks ago. We’ll keep you posted on any new developments.
-larry