It’s been nearly 8 years now since I checked into the Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplant Clinic at Duke for my autologous SCT.
I hate that my transplant buddy, Joyce, couldn’t make it this far with me. When she told me her time was running out, I didn’t realize how fast it would go. I thought there’d be more time. Three months, even. I think it was about 3 weeks instead.
As for me, I am still living an uneventful life. My MM test result are slowly climbing. I have no symptoms. My doctor said we’d wait for a “triggering” event before considering treatment. He means that we’d wait until I have some symptoms, such as anemia, before undertaking any treatment.
In July, I broke my left shoulder, but it had nothing to do with myeloma. I wound up with something called a Bankart fracture (“bony Bankart”) and Hill-Sachs deformity. A piece of the bone called the glenoid broke off. The orthopedist explained that there’d probably be no benefit to attempting surgery to repair it. I will just be at risk for future dislocations, but he didn’t think that would be very likely. I was happy to avoid surgery.
Here are some some pictures that show the injury.
