I'm a 66 year old man from Mumbai, India who was diagnosed with smoldering myeloma two years ago. I pulled on with close to normal monoclonal protein levels and light chains for a while, and thank God for those two years where I could check so many things off my list!
During those two years, I made lots of lifestyle changes. I became vegan; gave up most processed foods, sugar, and alcohol; increased exercise; reduced work stress; took up music and meditation for relaxation; etc. I like to think those helped delay my progression to symptomatic multiple myeloma. I still don't have any apparent manifestation of multiple myeloma except for some weight loss.
However, about four to five months ago, my serum free light chain ratio shot up and my hematologist prescribed MRI's, which showed some bone attrition. He gave me 4 rounds of Velcade, Revlimid, and dexamethasone (VRD), which brought me to complete remission (CR). Nevertheless, I have a pesky 17p deletion that my doc warned me about and recommended an autologous stem cell transplant.
I am lucky to have international insurance, and opted to do my transplant in Singapore instead of India. We went and checked out the different hospitals and ultimately picked Mount Elizabeth Novena.
I have been reading people's posts here for a while, and they have given me information, tips, and mental strength, so I thought it's time for me to reciprocate and share my journey, in part to increase the information here in the forum for patients in Asia.
I arrived in Singapore about two weeks ago with my wife and daughter, and spent part of a week undergoing preliminary tests and assessments. We then did 5 days of Neupogen shots (at our hotel), with thankfully no side effects except minimal pain and fatigue. I took Claritin (loratadine) everyday, as advised on this forum.
On Monday this week I checked into the hospital and had my central line put in, since I apparently have smallish veins. This part was annoying but not too painful. I was then hooked up to the aphoresis machine for about 6 hours. Again, not painful, but so boring! Every time I moved, laughed, or even thought loudly (just kidding), the machine objected at me by beeping loudly, so I was effectively pinned down.
At the end of the first day we were in for a bit of a disappointment: they collected only 2.3 million cells, against a target of 10 million. They were hoping for a good collection since my counts and health otherwise are ok.
The doc said the numbers collected were only likely to decrease with each successive day, so he gave me an extra Neupogen shot that night and also a short of Mozobil (plerixafor). Luckily I had no diarrhea from the Mozobil, which many others have reported here. They also gave me a sedative to minimize how much I moved around to improve the collection efficiency!
The Mozobil clearly worked! On the second day I had a bumper harvest of 8 million, which meant I was cleared to go home
I was glad to be unhooked and free to move about!I now have about a week or so before I check back in for the melphalan and reinfusion (either December 2 or 5). I will share another post then!
