Getting serious at Wake Forest
Last Wednesday Susan and I took a trip to Wake Forest Baptist Hospital to check in with their cancer experts. It was more or less good news all round though I was glad Susan took the time off work to drive me there - I was nearly asleep on the way back. It's also absolutely essential to have her around as her ability to remember detail is far better than mine. So if any of the following makes no sense, it's my fault, not the hospital's.
The next step in my treatment is to have another month-long cycle of chemotherapy (or two), followed by a stem cell transplant. If you've been paying attention you'll know that I don't need a donor but thank you to the people who have offered to be donors. They take my own blood, remove a bunch of stem cells - they'd like 10 million but must have at least 2 million - and then put the blood back into me. I get to stay in hospital for about a week to keep me away from sick people (odd logic) and so that I'm close at hand if I don't like having my blood messed with. Meanwhile they do all sorts of vile things to my stem cells to make them ready to do battle with my cancer and pump me full of drugs that will make my bones receptive to the stem cells and finally cause my hair to fall out.
Then the stem cells get shoved back in again and they start to make my bones swell which is apparently not the most delightful feeling in the world. During this part I am kept not quite in aplastic bubble but being in a football crowd or classroom are definitely out and I am restricted to 2 visitors at a time. I don't expect many people to visit as Wake Forest is a 2 hour drive from Asheville over a pretty gruesome bit of freeway across the eastern continental divide - fun in the snow.
The real good news is that my "numbers" are moving in the right direction still. Because of the chemicals I'm being injected with the only number worth keeping an eye on is my "Free light chains" (google it) which tells them how much of my blood is literally falling apart - all the other numbers I have been following religiously are going all over the place as the docs try to lower the free light chains number which started out at 77 and was 22.5 a month ago - haven't got the latest number. It needs to be below 2.5 which, assuming exponential decay is at work here, could be as early as 2 months.
My next door (kinda) neighbour, Chris, is a retired STEM teacher looking for the odd bit of substitute teaching work so I'm hoping he can step into my shoes while I'm up at Wake Forest. Can't really leave a couple of weeks of busy work for the kids to do - I'd get lynched by their parents. (At this point I suppress other unprofessional thoughts).
Not all roses, though - my left hip / buttock still hurts and my left foot has joined it, possibly as the result of a second chemo drug (Zometa) being added to my cocktail. I still survived 3 games reffing under 8 year olds yesterday - it's quite fun thinking what I'd do to any 18 year old who got up to what those littlies do like barging into each other and trying to catch the ball.
Final comment - this ain't autumn weather but I must confess to enjoying it: the paper says we'll be at 80 degrees later this week - whatever happened to duffle coats and gumboots on Guy Fawkes night? And we're probably under a fire ban so no honking great fire next Saturday, either.
The next step in my treatment is to have another month-long cycle of chemotherapy (or two), followed by a stem cell transplant. If you've been paying attention you'll know that I don't need a donor but thank you to the people who have offered to be donors. They take my own blood, remove a bunch of stem cells - they'd like 10 million but must have at least 2 million - and then put the blood back into me. I get to stay in hospital for about a week to keep me away from sick people (odd logic) and so that I'm close at hand if I don't like having my blood messed with. Meanwhile they do all sorts of vile things to my stem cells to make them ready to do battle with my cancer and pump me full of drugs that will make my bones receptive to the stem cells and finally cause my hair to fall out.
Then the stem cells get shoved back in again and they start to make my bones swell which is apparently not the most delightful feeling in the world. During this part I am kept not quite in aplastic bubble but being in a football crowd or classroom are definitely out and I am restricted to 2 visitors at a time. I don't expect many people to visit as Wake Forest is a 2 hour drive from Asheville over a pretty gruesome bit of freeway across the eastern continental divide - fun in the snow.
The real good news is that my "numbers" are moving in the right direction still. Because of the chemicals I'm being injected with the only number worth keeping an eye on is my "Free light chains" (google it) which tells them how much of my blood is literally falling apart - all the other numbers I have been following religiously are going all over the place as the docs try to lower the free light chains number which started out at 77 and was 22.5 a month ago - haven't got the latest number. It needs to be below 2.5 which, assuming exponential decay is at work here, could be as early as 2 months.
My next door (kinda) neighbour, Chris, is a retired STEM teacher looking for the odd bit of substitute teaching work so I'm hoping he can step into my shoes while I'm up at Wake Forest. Can't really leave a couple of weeks of busy work for the kids to do - I'd get lynched by their parents. (At this point I suppress other unprofessional thoughts).
Not all roses, though - my left hip / buttock still hurts and my left foot has joined it, possibly as the result of a second chemo drug (Zometa) being added to my cocktail. I still survived 3 games reffing under 8 year olds yesterday - it's quite fun thinking what I'd do to any 18 year old who got up to what those littlies do like barging into each other and trying to catch the ball.
Final comment - this ain't autumn weather but I must confess to enjoying it: the paper says we'll be at 80 degrees later this week - whatever happened to duffle coats and gumboots on Guy Fawkes night? And we're probably under a fire ban so no honking great fire next Saturday, either.
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