Phil's Vacation: Day +9

Day +9 consisted of good company, still no appetite and a possible sign of engraftment of my stem cells....hooray!

A quick reminder that Zak will be packaging shirts on Wednesday, so it would be helpful if you put your order in today at http://dominategear.com. We have the classic gray shirt with the burgundy (Multiple Myeloma) ribbion and our HOT dominate Breast Cancer shirt as well. Thanks for the support in dominating cancer.

My Lower half ain't so happy

Yesterday my labs confirmed that I am officially neotropenic...meaning my white blood cell count (WBC) is close to zero. What that means is I get to wear a sweet mask if I go out into public and that I avoid every sick person like the black plague.

It's been months since I have had any side effects or issues with treatments. I am currently dealing with a couple of issues that make me realize that on the MM path, remember to count your blessings when things are "normal."

First, I feel like this whole experience has brought me to appreciate the hard work of all the pregnant women who have gone before, are pregnant or will one day take the plunge. Sometimes I feel like a pregnant woman, although our house probably is only big enough for one pregnant lady at a time.

Here are two recent pain points:

1. Lower Back Pain - I was warned of bone pain with the neupogen shots, which I shrugged off after 4 days of taking shots with no side effects. Yesterday was different. I have a shocking pain that comes in waves in my lower back. I have no clue what back labor feels like, but I think this is the closest that I will ever get to it.
2. Fissures - Hopefully this isn't too much information for you to take with you into your weekend, my apologies if it is. The only relief I can get from this excruciating pain is when I think of Jerry Stiller's comment in Zoolander: "It stings me like a fissure in my a**". Again, I will never feel the pain of childbirth, but shoot, every morning I am reminded that childbirth is not for me!

Another Miracle? WBC at 7.8!

I just sat down for my final chemo cycle #5 infusion at UMHS Cancer Center and the nurse handed me my labs. The labs are taken before every infusion because it is important to ensure that my blood counts (White, Red, Platelets, etc.) are not going to low. The chemo dominates the bad stuff, but it also take a tole on the good stuff unfortunately. Because we are preparing for a stem cell collection in February, we need to ensure that my counts don't go too low which could affect the ability to pull enough stem cells.



Being a numbers guy I also pour over every digit to understand changes and trends and then I come up with my own crazy theories that are not scientific and drive Cassie insane! For the past three months I have seen my white blood count (WBC), red blood count and platelets all hover right below the normal range. Low, but nothing to call home about. Today though, all my numbers are in the normal range, including Hemoglobin, and the WBC is 7.8! (normal range 4.0 to 10.0). I don't even have the sniffles, so it's unlikely the number is up become of an infection/illness. I also got my labs from Tuesday and the WBC was 6.3 and all other counts within normal limits.

I will admit that I don't know how significant this is, and I know there are MM patients and experts that read this blog occasionally, feel free to give your reaction based on your experience. Cassie's response was that maybe the chemo is not working as effectively; which is a really good thought. We'll know in two weeks when we get our results from Cycle #5.

On the transplant front, I agreed to move forward with a Chemo Cycle #6 in hopes to get to VGPR (90% reduction of M-protein/spike). I find it unlikely that I will drop from 0.8 to 0.3.... but maybe I should stop trusting in my own understanding and play dumb. Seems to have good results!