Month: May 2006

Very crabby lately

I’ve been very, very crabby lately. I think it’s because I just came off of 4 months of high dose dex. I’m not sure. I’ll have to report this to my doctor when I see him next week. I don’t want to take more dex, so that’s not a solution to the problem. I also think that I may be having a hard time dealing with a cancer for which there’s no cure. For me, it’s been 3+ years of constant treatment and I haven’t been able to stop without seeing my IgA take off. It makes me consider, more and more, doing a stem cell transplant. I’ll see Dr. Durie in August at the IMF patient & family seminar, so I can ask him what he thinks. He has told me before that my MM isn’t aggressive enough to warrant a SCT. I wonder about my QOL though. SCT could possibly give me years of remission (or not — who knows?). I still have a few more month on this Rev/dex EAP, so I will stay on that until the drug is no longer free.

I apologize to friends & family to whom I’ve been short or have been ignoring in an effort to avoid having to interact with people. I need this time to myself and it’s better that I not offend people for now. I hope you’ll understand!

What nobody tells you about pools

When you have a pool, you have to turn off the pump at night. If you don’t, you’ll find dead animals in your skimmer. I found a product called FrogLog, that I set up at night to help little animals get out of the pool if they fall in. Since I’ve been turning off the pump and setting out the FrogLogs, I haven’t found anything in my skimmer, thank goodness. Tonight though, I did find a mouse swimming. I fished him out with a net, but I think he was beyond exhaustion. He hasn’t moved since I set him down on a soft bit of grass. I hope he recovers. I don’t know what else I can do for him. I’ll check on him later. For now, I would guess he needs to rest and not have the bejesus scared out of him by a giant with a flashlight every few minutes.

IMF Seminar

I’ll be going to the IMF seminar in Philadelphia in August with my friend J. We’ll drive up on the 4th so we can be there on the 5th. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone again (Suzanne, Susie, Dr. Durie). JG lives nearby, so I’ll make some time to stop & see her.

This time, I’ll make sure I’m not taking dex during the trip. In times past, I’ve been so worn out from dex that I had to take time to crash during the sessions. Since I’m on standard dose dex now, I can take it on 4 days after I get home.

M-spike from test on 5/3

This is the result of my SPEP on May 3.

Hi Beth, Your results from 5/3/06:

M-spike in beta 2 = 0.2, gamma 0.1. Last results I have are on 3/8/06 when M-spike in beta was 0.3 and gamma was 0.2.

Let me know if questions.

Hospital visit

Yesterday when I had my monthly appointment, I was planning on meeting a list friend whom I’ll call B. I called B’s cell phone and the person answering told me that B had been admitted to the hospital! I found the right room and stopped to say hello. It wasn’t the kind of first meeting I hoped for, but I’m sure it wasn’t for B, either. Never-the-less, it made me realize (again) how lucky I’ve been. I did a rare thing and sent up a prayer for B, for a speedy and complete recovery.

End of 4th Cycle

I finished the 4th cycle of rev/dex and am now starting number 5. The good thing about this is that I am now on standard dose of dex. Thank goodness. My IgA is at 468 mg/dL now, too. The lowest yet. IgG: 273 mg/dL and IgM: 36. I remember when my IgM was too low to measure and my IgA was 4,625 mg/dL. Dr. H told me that I am having the best response, with the least side effects of all the pts in the Rev/dex EAP at their clinic.