The Study Is Over

For me. Sad to say, because this treatment was the easiest I ' ve ever been on, and it has worked well for other people (with other blood cancers). Yesterday ' s blood tests and PET/CT show progression of the myeloma, however, and after 13 weeks (a quarter of a year!) it certainly should be heading the other way. According to Dr WG the PET/CT does not show any new lesions in my bones, which probably means that the study treatment was doing some good. However, it does show increased activity in the existing lesions. For a while we wondered if that increasing activity was " flare, " caused by my own immune system attacking the myeloma. There may indeed be some flare, but we have reached the point where it doesn ' t matter, because the myeloma is clearly not backing down. To underscore that point, the blood tests also show progression in the last three weeks. M-spike is level at 1.5 g/dL, but IgG increased by 9% from 1600 to 1740 mg/dL, the seventh increase in a row, except for one sharp bump up and back down when I was quite sick with the stomach flu. Furthermore my Lambda Light Chains almost doubled from three weeks ago, from 4.46 to 8.60 mg/dL, while Kappa chains went down. I ' m not sure what this means but no one believes that it can be good. I gave the study a good try, but it ' s over. Sigh. So what ' s next? Happily, I do have a little Pomalyst left, not expired yet, so I can start taking that immediately, with the blessing of...
Source: Myeloma Hope - Category: Cancer & Oncology Source Type: blogs