Progress

Today has been a very good day. I consciously have held off from posting anything for a couple of weeks. I thought I’d give people a break from my posts for a short while however today I have to let people know what’s happening.

The past couple of weeks have been ok actually. I’ve had a couple of side effect issues from the meds but nothing serious. For those reading this to find out what possibly to expect from Myeloma, I’ve had a little bit of nausea, fatigue continues to be an issue as a I am tiring really quickly and I’m also having an issue with cramps in my hands and feet. The cramps have been very painful and it’s likely that they are a side effect of the Revlamid medication. The hospital can adjust the medication if it becomes too serious but for now I’d rather put up with it and plough on.

I had a chemo treatment today so asked for my Para Protein results following my third cycle of treatment. If you’ve been following you’ll know that the Para Protein levels are one of the markers used to establish the presence of Myeloma. My levels started in the 60’s and went down to 24 at last count. They are now (as at 23^rd June 15) down to 6. I’m already three weeks into cycle 4 so expect them to be lower again.

So what’s next up? Well the doctor needed a 90% response to the chemo and we did think after our last meeting that another couple of cycles would be needed to hit the magic number. With todays great result I’m now expecting that our next meeting we will be discussing implementation of the next stage which will be high-dose treatment with stem cell support (I’ve posted a booklet from Macmillan onto my Resources page if you need to read up on it now). We’ve already discussed its implications and I’ll give some further detail on it soon. Still a way to go and not out of the woods yet but today has been a great day and I’m definitely heading in the right direction.

As always credit for all of this progress goes to the wonderful nurses and doctors of the NHS. I have put myself totally in their hands and they have got me this far. Even if things where to start to take a turn for the worse I’ll always be grateful to them.