Just A Blip In The Road

Treatment will start on Monday. John will receive a combination of three drugs, Velcade and Dex being two of them. We have been told that his myeloma is not really doing anything. It is there but inactive. That is hard to understand but apparently the 30% cell count is not the 30% cell count that was there previous to his DEPACE treatments. There is very little protein to be found in his urine. That apparently is the most important thing. They are not concerned. After three rounds of Velacde and Dex. we will be heading back to Seattle. (providing John responds to that and they feel confident that he will)

We were told that the bone marrow biopsy are not given at three month intervals because they are invasive and because they do not conclusively indicate the amount of disease in the body. Myeloma is patchy throughout. It is impossible to measure so the best measurement of his myeloma is the 24 hour urine tests to see how munch protein is spilling out. Because the myeloma is inactive it is not spilling out.

We were told that the reason that he was not sent at 6 months was because they wanted to give him a little more time to recover from the Jan. transplant. Because this transplant is hard on him they decided to lower risk from the transplant by waiting and letting him recover more, that is until they were happy that his blood work was stable. Things are more complicated because of his kidneys and they were not happy for awhile after his transplant.

The Velcade treatment is not as hard on him as any of the previous treatments were. He will have his immune system impacted but not to the extent it was with the other chemos.

Another reason that it took so long was that the provincial government took a long time approving the trip to Seattle although he had not sent that application in until September. He does not have to reapply for the second trip. They feel confident that the Kinsmen will continue to help us.

That sums up everything as simply as I can put it. We are more or less satisfied with his explanation. He was very kind and compassionate. Our transplant coordinator and our social worker were there as well and were very supportive.

We will not have as much work to do to get ready to go the second time. We should be able to get ready in a short notice. They will keep in close contact with the people in Seattle. Seattle will fit us in whenever John is ready to go.