Pomalidomide Side Effect?

Pomalidomide keeps my cancer stable, but has significant side effects:

• Bradycardia (reduced heart rate). This doesn't bother me, but it does some people.
• Blood clots. These can appear as deep vein thromboses (DVTs) or pulmonary embolisms. They are life-threatening, but I haven't had one. I do take an aspirin a day.
• Peripheral neuropathy. The bottoms of my feet are numb in some places, and I have one thumb that tingles. From what I hear, my neuropathy may be fairly typical.
• Neutropenia, which is a low neutrophil count. Neutrophils are a major front-line fighter in the immune system, and without them we cannot easily fight off infections.

And I have an infection. At least four weeks ago, I apparently whacked the back of my hand against something, possibly outdoors working on a tree that we removed and cut for firewood. A bruise appeared, and a red circle around a tiny puncture. In the ensuing weeks the infection spread to three knuckles and the tissue between them, now overtaking most of the back of the hand and causing enough swelling to make it quite impossible to close the hand.

We've tried three different kinds of antibiotics in those weeks, with varying results. None of them reversed the infection, but one or two may have halted or slowed its advance. The one that may have worked the best, Biaxin, was stopped because liver enzymes appeared to go up, one of the risks of Biaxin. Now my local primary care physician, Dr LL, has me on a fourth antibiotic, doxycycline. We'll see how that goes.

Neutrophils may be important here - we really don't know HOW important, because we don't yet know the type of bacteria or fungus causing the infection. People with normal immune systems also get infections, but I sure haven't had one like this before. If necessary, we can stop the pomalidomide for a week and still remain on the study. But the myeloma is stable now, and I really don't want to mess that up!

Otherwise, though, life is wonderful. We three ran another marathon last Saturday.