Staying the Course

Rebecca received her bi-weekly dose of 0.7 mg/M^2 yesterday along with 20 mg of Dex/day for two days. She also had an infusion of Zometia over a 30 minute period. The PN is still persistent as well as the back pain.


The doctor gave her a prescription for Onsolis, a new application method for fentanyl. It is a soluble film you put in your mouth on your cheek. It dissolves in about 15 minutes. She did her first one yesterday when we were at the cancer center. It is a 200 mcg dose. It didn’t do much for the pain. Made her a little groggy. Sixty of these costs $1224, our co-pay was $45. After she takes three of these she can double the dose if she wants by taking one more after the first one dissolves.

She will have another free light chain protein test in two weeks. This will provide an indication on how well the low dose bi-weekly Velcade chemo treatment is keeping her myeloma cancer cells in check. The normal cycle of Velcade is 1.3 mg/M^2 four times every three weeks. She is taking a little less than 20 percent of this amount. We are hoping this low dose will work because of the peripheral neuropathy. If the PN doesn’t start decreasing she may want to stop the Velcade and try something else.

We will be going to UAB on July 7th to get a second opinion and discuss a stem cell transplant.

Here are some of her lab results from 6/25/10:

WBC = 10.2 (4.8 - 10.8)
RBC = 3.34 (4.2 - 5.4)
HGB = 12.0 (12.0 - 16.0)
PLT = 159 (130 - 400)
Creatinine = 1.1 (0.4 - 1.1)
GFR = 51 (>60)