Pleasant Surprise

Went to chemo today and low and behold the person in the chair next to me was someone that I had worked with at the AAR here in Chicago. He now works with Sharma and Associates, a railroad consulting group started by Chicago based AAR employees that didn't want to go to Pueblo.

Anyhow had an interesting time discussing old times and the current status of mutual friends. Made the time pass quicker. 

Did feel the side effect of inability to sleep last night.

Fifth time around

Started the fifth round of chemo today. The infusion nurses were surprised to see me back. All wanted to know why? I jokingly told them it was because they didn't do their job good enough last time. Other than some delays on getting the paper work in order things went smoothly. Got me on the first stick. A lot better than the 9 sticks one time on the last go around. 

So far no sign of side effects they usually didn't start until Wed. but toward the last of the fourth round they started to appear on Monday. Hopefully the month off has reset the clock. Let's see how things work out as we move along.

Let's go do Some More

Well got the biopsy results today and the discrepancy in the cell count is not as large as last time but the biopsy # is still too high to go forward with the transplant (15%). So 2 more rounds (months) of chemo thus the transplant won't be till late June or early July at the soonest.

I was hoping against this result. Here's wishing that the month I've been off the Chemo will reduce the side effects when I get started again. The last week of the last round was pretty nasty with them.

Another downside of this change will be that everything is pushed back a couple of months. A direct result is that I will miss doing my thing at the Day Out With Thomas event which I kind of enjoy. Right now it looks like it will be mid October before I'm back in full circulation.

Speed bump in the road

Had a bit of a setback on the transplant process.  Went through the 4 cycles of chemo (which was rougher this time than las). The blood tests at the end of the last cycle indicated that the chemo had done its job. There were only 5% myeloma cells in the blood which is a low enough to move on with the transplant. So we scheduled the pre transplant tests. One test was a bone marrow biopsy to confirm the blood numbers. Well low and behold the myeloma cell count from the biopsy was 40%, way to different from the blood work, and if correct is way too high for the transplant. That was 2 weeks ago. 

So have scheduled another biopsy to see what the results are this time. If it continues high we will need to do more rounds of chemo (I hope not). Did the biopsy today and unexpectedly it was painless, the last one was quite painful. So more uncertainty and won't know for a couple of weeks where we go next.