Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Changing Chemo Plan


I need to be more attentive to this blog. If I would post every time I went on a mountain bike ride that would keep it up to date.

Rebecca has been having more difficulty with peripheral neuropathy. She had velcade on Apr 23 and then took a chemo holiday until May 28 when she had another dose of velcade, 0.7 mg/m-squared. The plan is to try to take this amount every two weeks. The melphalan and prednisone was discontinued since she wants to harvest her stem cells. It is reported that melphalan makes it more difficult to harvest stem cells.

The chemo holiday precipitated a discussion on what we could do if and when there is no chemo plan that works anymore. This normally happens with most every myeloma patient at some point. What is left is an autologous stem cell transplant and an allogeneic stem cell plant. If she can harvest we will put that in the freezer for now. She has two sisters that have offered to be a donor if they are compatible. That is a 1 in 4 chance for each of them.

Rebecca has been having more back pain lately. She had an MRI last week. There were no new fractures. Our doctor only had the narrative report. He said the old fractures are still there. When I asked him if the bones have fused or could the bone fractures still move relative to each other. He couldn’t say. I would like to see the data on a computer screen and compare the last two MRI’s. With the MRI data we should be able to see where the nerves are coming out of the fractured vertebrae. She fractured L2 thru L4 in Oct of 2008, T12, L1, and L5 fractured sometime in early 2009. If it was not for these fractures I think she could have a pretty normal life.

Based on her latest Freelite test the amount of myeloma cells is very low. She will have another Freelite test on 11 June. This should indicate the effects of this change in chemo plan.

Here are some of her blood labs from 28 May 2010:
WBC = 8.1
RBC = 3.32
HGB = 11.9
PLT = 177
Creatinine = 1.1
GFR = 51
Albumin = 3.7

7 May 2010
IgG 458 mg/dl (700 - 1600
IgA 51 mg/dl (70 - 400)
IgM 10 mg/dl (40 - 230)
IEP - No monoclonal band identified.
Kappa Free Light Chains 9.63 mg/l (3.3 - 19.4)
Lambda Free Light Chains 9.53 mg/l (5.7 - 26.3)
Kappa/Lambda FLC ratio 1.01 (0.26 - 1.65)

1 comment:

  1. Wishing you both the best of luck and all very good wishes on your journey with Myeloma from another couple on the same journey here in the UK. Sincere Regards.

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