[PatAnders1]

In the "Waiting Place"

by PatAnders1 on Mon Apr 18, 2016 4:10 pm

Hi All

I'm Patricia and I'm writing from my waiting place.

All of this began with a pretty routine (at least for me) visit to another doctor, to determine why I had some "off" results on some blood/urine tests on a visit to my GP. I have been battling pain and chronic illness now for the past two years. Everything has been attributed to lupus / fibromyalgia and now the new kid on the block, arthritis. I'm 47 years old.

The kidney doctor ran some pretty deep blood work, and when I returned about a week later, while he said my kidneys seemed to be pretty ship-shape, my tests has revealed a positive for myeloma. At that point, he said that these can sometimes come back negative in a second round of testing. So back to the lab for more blood draws. A week later the office called and said that he had run two more tests, and one came back positive again, the other negative! Now, I was baffled! He then said, he wanted me to see a hematologist/oncologist. I couldn't even get in the door for another month.

Last week, I saw the oncologist. She said, the results she was looking at could ALSO be leukemia for pity sake!!! :'( Then, I cried. She said that the abnormal protein was small. (I have no clue at this point who is minimizing, I hadn't seen any of the lab workups, nothing!) We were in for a bone marrow biopsy two days later and now have to wait until April 26 for the next appointment.

But here is what I have (since I requested it) now (maybe someone might be able to tell me what I'm looking at):

Protein total 6.8 G/DL
Albumin 4.0 G/DL
Alpha 1 Globulin (H) 0.4 G/DL
Alpha 2 Globulin 0.9 G/DL
Beta 1 Globulin 0.4 G/DL
Beta 2 Globulin 0.3 G/DL
Gamma Globulin (L) 0.7 G/DL
Abnormal Protein Band 1 (H) 0.2 G/DL

Kappa Light Chain, Free Serum 17.10
Lambda Light Chain, Free Serum 17.13
Kappa/Lambda Light Chain Free with Ration, Serum 1.00
An IGA (Lambda) Monoclonal Immunoglobulin With Monoclonal Free Lambda Light Chain is Detected.

That's pretty much what all the papers have on them.

And I'm here in the waiting place, wondering if I need to be worrying. *chewing nails*

[JPC]

Re: In the "Waiting Place"

by JPC on Mon Apr 18, 2016 5:30 pm

Hello Pat:

I think first you need to get a good general hematologist to narrow it down. If its multiple myeloma, then you should move on to a doctor specializing in that condition. Your abnormal protein, however, is very low. At that level, many people have a condition that is much earlier than full blown "symptomatic" multiple myeloma.

Based on your abnormal protein alone (the M-Spike), the doctor would probably not call it multiple myeloma, however, there are other factors that could lead a doctor to make that call. It is possible to have multiple myeloma without the M-spike, however, that is a less common condition. The other possibilities (you could call them pre-cancerous) would be called smoldering multiple myeloma or MGUS.

At this stage, the waiting and worrying, I know, can be very nerve racking, but you need to go through the process to figure out exactly what is causing your problems.

Regards, JPC