Life's Journey with Multiple Myeloma

The last two weeks have been filled with tests, results and getting ready for surgery. Here’s a quick summary of where we are:

We met with Dr Z last week. All Myeloma indicators have remained stable. No M protein at all! All other indicators are normal. WBC is around 4 so just slightly below normal but nothing to really worry about. Since Alpesh is currently off all drugs (in preparation for thyroid surgery), we’ve made use of this time by getting together with family and friends to celebrate the end of eight induction cycles and the great results he’s had so far.

Alpesh had another bone marrow biopsy last week just to check that all is well there. The results show 6% plasma cells with no monoclonal cells. We have an appointment with Dr Reddy next Tuesday, June 2nd to discuss these results.

He had a CT scan last Friday to check the neck/throat area prior to the thyroid surgery since the last test was conducted in January. This morning, Dr Tipirneni said the results indicate that the nodule in the left appears to be the same size as it was in January and there doesn’t appear to be anything suspicious in the surrounding neck areas.

Alpesh is currently having surgery on his thyroid while I write this. We were at Winter Park Hospital at 5:30am this morning and they took him in around 7:30am. Since the CT scan indicates that only the left lobe is affected, we all agreed that unless Dr Tipirneni saw something of concern during surgery, he would only remove the left lobe and then we would wait for the results to come back from the pathology lab before making any further decisions.

Even though we all know that the world is full of people who have thyroid issues (underactive, overactive, non-functional, complete removal), and that one can function perfectly well without a thyroid with the help of a synthetic drug, Alpesh, unfortunately, has the added complication of the parathyroids which regulate the calcium in the blood and bones. Since the regulation of calcium is critical in myeloma patients, we are trying to “save” as much of the thyroid as possible to ensure the parathyroids stay intact also. With a full removal, there is always a risk that the parathyroids may get damaged.

Dr Tipirneni just beeped me to tell me that Alpesh is out of surgery. He said everything went well. He did not see anything suspicious on the right lobe or surrounding areas. There is no lymph node involvement. Alpesh is in recovery now – I will need to wait until they beep me again when I will be able to see him (another 1.5 hours). They will then take him up to his hospital room. He will need to stay overnight and Dr Tipirneni will hopefully discharge him tomorrow morning. His throat will be sore and he will not be able to talk for a day or so (that will be an amazing concept for Alpesh!).

Luckily he will be entertained tonight in hospital as he’ll be watching basketball, the Eastern Conference Finals (best of 7 games), the Orlando Magic are playing the Cleveland Cavaliers. Orlando currently leads 2-1 – Go Magic!)

[by Sima]

This entry was posted on May 26, 2009 at 2:07 pm and is filed under Results, Treatment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.