Friday, August 19, 2016

All Good News

Friday, August 19, 2016:

Wednesday I brought a Mayo Clinic blood draw "kit" to the local clinic, where they drew the blood and shipped it overnight back to Mayo.  Last evening the results showed up on Mayo's patient portal, and I'm happy!

Since early April my treatment regimen has been 2 mg of Pomalyst every day, with infusions of Darzalex every week and then every other week, currently with 12 mg of dexamethasone (DEX) on the weeks between Darzalex infusions.  During that time my IgG and M-Spike dropped about 20% per month until a month ago, then leveled off.

Wednesday's results confirmed that IgG and M-Spike are stable, at least for now.  IgG was 515 mg/dL two months ago, 544 last month, and 506 on Wednesday.  M-Spike followed a similar pattern and was 0.5 g/dL on wednesday.  These numbers are as low as they have ever been since my diagnosis 13 years ago, and just a third of their values of last April.  The chemo regimen is doing a great job for me.

Where to from here?  Could we cut the Pomalyst or the DEX?  It's nice to think about, but mostly I'm just happy to be stable for now and content to wait another month.  I suppose another PET scan is indicated, to be sure that the lesions in my vertebrae have faded back (as I think they have), but I can wait for that too.  I haven't heard from Dr WG at Mayo yet - perhaps he will have a different idea.

I also had a heart disease scare in the last marathon, but a recent stress test was normal, actually better than normal, so I think the angina-like symptoms were caused by acid reflux.  Also, because my most recent colonoscopy was ten years in the past, the doc ordered one of those and that too was negative.  I feel thoroughly checked out and ready to run a few more marathons!