Back To The Needle

I saw my Pulmonologist again. I asked him about the black spots I saw when he had the camera in my lungs. He said those spots were my bronchial tubes, and that he saw nothing unusual in there.

He said all my tests came back negative, and he suspects the Revlimid was causing the cough and the low blood numbers. He asked for another scan to confirm my improvement.

I saw my Urologist again. It was the three year anniversary of my prostate cancer surgery. The blood test results say PSA is undetectable. Those words are sweet to my ears. I am thankful for my recovery from that cancer and surgery.

I saw my Oncologist again. She agrees the Revlimid was probably causing a negative reaction. I stopped taking it a couple months ago. She strongly recommends that I continue my low dose chemo maintenance with Velcade.

Revlimid was a pill; Velcade is administered as a shot in the stomach. I’ll get one every two weeks. It’s the same shot I was previously getting twice a week.

She reminded me that maintenance medication will give me more time between transplants, and if it buys me a year, it’s well worth it, not just for pushing the next transplant a year farther down the road, but she said with the frequent new developments in the treatment of Multiple Myeloma, one year could make a difference in the future treatments I might receive.