[bluemountain]

Fear and loathing

by bluemountain on Tue Sep 10, 2013 2:06 pm

I do not know if this will be helpful to me or anyone else but as I head into this weeks tests to see how things went with my Stem Cell Transplant, I am in such fear I can barely function. I am 54 years old and got diagnosed in March of 2012. I had a very large plasmacytoma and I had back pain related to it for many years. Because I am completely non secratory it was pretty amazing my oncologist caught he multiple myeloma. Three very reputable Doctors told me I absolutely did not have multiple myeloma but finally my Oncologist said he thought something was just not right and gave me a Bone Marrow biopsy. Turned out I had close to 20% Myeloma cells (described by my multiple myeloma specialist at Duke as "Not very much" and no other indicators beside the tumor...no anemia, other bone pain or lesions, bone density was normal, kidney's normal. I started the routine....first radiation to get rid of the plasmacytoma and that went well....they got it all and all of the cancer with it. I then had reconstructive back surgery and that sort of works...I still have discomfort but much less pain and much more mobility. Next up...VRD chemo. This got weird...my local oncologist said the results were not what we wanted and I might not get a transplant. The very next day I went to Duke and they told me it did go well and the transplant was on. I harvested over 11 million Stem Cells, got blasted by chemo and got my transplant in Feb 2013. My counts went to normal in 15 days and I was released to go home....my counts kept getting better and I felt fine so I went back to work 20 days post transplant. Since the transplant I have felt great , work a lot, travel a lot and I am freaked it will end Thursday.

One other little thing....I also have CLL. Stage 0 with less then 2% they said and both Doctors and the CLL specialist at Duke both said ignore it...and they never talk about it.

Thursday I will have a PET and Bone Marrow biopsy. If things are good I will stay on the 10mg Revlimid maintenance ..... if my Bone Marrow Biopsy is still over 10%.....here is the big question... what will they do? Non secratory, CLL, Feel great, no effects (I have not had so much as a cold or runny nose since transplant), living normal but....will they throw me back into another transplant, keep me on this treatment as long as I feel good, go to more intense chemo maintenance....I have no idea?

My life is so good......what's next!