Beth Morgan Multiple Myeloma Treatment Blog

I stayed up too late last night (until at least 3:30 am), so I slept until noon. The day flew by after that. I did some grocery shopping, went to my office and got a monitor to replace one that was broken at mom’s house (family business, so I’m not stealing from my employer – I am my employer). I walked the dog a little over a mile, and then came home.

Since I took dexamethasone (dex) last night, I’m very tired now. It won’t be long before I go to sleep, but I’m probably going to need some help anyway. I take xanax to help me sleep and stop the jitters from the dex.

I’m about to do some time on the Nordic Track Ellipse. Since I have high blood sugar when I take dex, exercise is one of the things that helps keep it down. It works pretty fast too. I wonder if this would be the case with type II diabetes too? My endocrinologist doesn’t call my high blood sugar diabetes, he calls it a metabolic disorder.

I’m going to be switching my treatment facility with the hope of saving some money. I do have insurance, but I have to pay 20% of the cost of the treatment, Zometa, which costs over $2,000 every 4 weeks. If you don’t have insurance now, do whatever you can to get it. Cancel your cable and cut back on anything else you can. It’s more important than you could ever imagine until something like cancer happens to you. If I didn’t have insurance, I’d have had to sell my house and car by now. Don’t count on the government (or anyone else) to care what happens to you. I’m serious about that. I got cancer when I was 41 years old, and am 43 now. Multiple Myeloma is a chronic cancer. I’ll need treatment the rest of my life, and eventually will have a stem cell transplant, which can cost up to $150,000. Please take my word for it and get health coverage if you don’y already have it. An illness will be financially devastating.

Ok, I’m going to hit the Nordic Track!

I had my 4 week appointment with Dr. O. at UNC Chapel Hill. My labs were pretty good, excluding the cancer. My IgA, which I feared would rise, seems to have levelled off, thank goodness! It was the same as last month: 1183 mg/dL. You can see the full report here. It’s at its highest level since I began treatment, but at least it didn’t go up again. I can live with that.

Dr. O. gave me the go ahead to take turmeric (curcumin). I bought 900 mg capsules that also contain pepper, believe it or not! The pepper helps the body utilize the curcumin. Oops. I need to take my capsule!

My blog has been getting spammed every day. The junk messages don’t appear on the site, but they come to me via email, since I have the blog configured to wait for my approval before posting comments. Thanks to those spamming losers, I have shut off comments to all but registered users. I hope you’ll register and continue to post your comments and thoughts. If you have any trouble, please let me know.

I still stand by my opinion that spam would be of little vaule to the pond scum that send it if people refused to do business with them. Therefore, I think it’s the people who BUY their junk that we should be punishing (in addition to spammers). This is my idea for a nationwide public awareness campaign slogan and bumper sticker:

“Buy from a spammer, and go to the slammer!”

I had read someplace that the protein needs of people with cancer are higher than that of the general population. I also saw on one of my Dana-Farber handouts that people on steroids need more protein. I fit into both categories. When I first learned I had MM, I became a vegetarian. Actually I was vegan for a while. I didn’t have any animal products. I started having meat again about a year ago. I’m not sure why, exactly. It’s not like it’s the best thing for me. Unless you can find organic, you’ll be exposed to all kinds of toxins just by eating meat and fish.

Recently I found Gardenburger meals, and tried a few. They’re pretty good! They don’t contain preservatives and all the chemicals other packaged foods do. I don’t really know all the details. Just what I read on the box. I’m not trying to do a commercial! These things are quick & easy, and will hopefully prevent me from eating things that are potentially bad for me when I’m in a hurry. My appetite is out of control sometimes, thanks to dex, and my Doc wants me to lose weight before I have a SCT.

The Gardenburger web site

Here’s a reminder to everyone who has any kind of drug infused: Always read the label! Make sure you’re getting the right drug for you. When I was getting my Zometa Wednesday, I looked at the bag a few minutes after the drip started, and was surprised to see that the name on the label wasn’t mine! It turned out the drug was zoledronic acid and the dose was correct. Had I not noticed, the worst thing that would have happened would have been that the other patient (whose name was on the label) would have been charged for my rx. Read the labels and don’t be afraid to speak up if you think anything is out of the ordinary!

If you have MM, I hope you were able to get your flu shot this year. I got mine about 3 weeks ago. I wasn’t aware of the shortage when I asked for the shot at the office of my primary care physician. Some of the medical facilities in town never got any supply at all this year.

Why is there a shortage? Problems with the sterility of the manufacturing process meant the vaccines produced could not be released for shipment, according to CNN. Should there be a shortage? Some would argue that frivilous lawsuits have frightened more manufacturers away from the business of producing flu and other vaccines.

As a part of my treatment for MM, I was told to get annual flu vaccines and a pneumonia vaccine every five years.

What if, for one week, all the money Americans would normally spend on sports went to help our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan? I’ve learned that a lot of them lack even basic personal hygiene items. That makes me very sad, and somewhat angry. I’m going to spend this weekend getting together some care packages for soldiers. There’s a list of addresses at http://www.anysoldier.us/index.cfm. I wonder what’s wrong with us as a society that we choose to spend our money on sporting events, DVDs, video games and other comparably trivial things when our soldier are risking our lives for us. I admire & respect anyone who is in the military. It’s something I was never tough enough to do (serve my country). So I pay taxes instead. But when I read about soldiers not having things like toilet paper and razors, it made me cry! Try to help if you can. I’ll update you on what I send out on Monday.

Help raise money for Myeloma research!

Washington DC performer and recording artist, Lianna,
has generously donated 10 copies of her CD (Walk In My Shoes) to help
us raise money for myeloma research. When you buy one of these CDs,
100% of the proceeds (except shipping costs) will be given to the International
Myeloma Foundation. Scroll down and click on the “Add to Cart” button to use Paypal.

You may also make a tax deductible donation directly to the IMF by clicking
HERE.
Please make your donation in honor of me, Beth Morgan. If your donation
to the IMF is $15 or more, please send your acknowledgement and postal
address to donations@coprolite.net
and I’ll send a CD to you.

You can read more about Lianna at her web site: http://www.liannaonline.com

For more information about Myeloma and the International Myeloma Foundation,
visit http://www.myeloma.org

Help us find a cure!

About Me