And now for some GOOD news

Monday & Tuesday March 12 & 13, 2012
Lithia Springs Park  Site #23

 

I don’t watch or listen to the news much anymore.

Those of you who know me, know that in my opinion, it’s not much other than bad news and the intent is to make us all afraid so we won’t rock the boat.  Thus when ever it comes on the radio when David has it on, I ask him if he’s enjoying “The Bad News”.   But today there was some very good news not on the radio but to be broadcast from here.  First about yesterday……….

 

Monday was the day of the Moffitt Cancer Symposium on new treatments for Multiple Myeloma.

The registration started at 4:30, followed by a talk by Dr. Kenneth Shane, who is David’s doctor at Moffitt,  on the pattern and progression of myeloma, current and future treatments.  It was very good.  A lot of information to take in all at once for those of us new to this.

 

 

After the talk, they broke the large audience up into 3 groups for Q&A and 3 different Moffitt Myeloma specialists fielded the questions.  David went to one and I went to another so we could hear more questions and he could ask and I could take notes of one session he was not in.

 

We met a woman who is 9 years past diagnosis, that was encouraging.  We met  people younger than David who have had it longer than he, people much older who have much worse cases.  We heard a number of their stories including about their stem cell transplants.  Rough going it sure sounds like.

 

A dinner followed the Q&A.  At our table, we talked with a doctor Jim and his wife Patty a nurse.  He is the patient, 57 years old and they have an 18 year old and a 12 year old child still at home.  Luckily his case is progressing very slowly and he does not have the genetic abnormalities that David has.  Also at our  table was Shelia, a woman who has a doctor in Maine where she lives half the year.  Then she had her stem cell transplant done at Dana Farber and was in the hospital for a month with that.   She also has a doctor at Moffitt since she lives down here in the summer.  A total of 3 doctors.  The more opinions the better I think.

 

I took some pictures of the slides from the talk so “Maybe” we can go back and try to remember things we couldn’t write down fast enough.  I doubt any of you would care to see those and I didn’t take any of the  Q & A or the dinner.

 

It was a very a very interesting evening to say the least, well organized and very well attended.  Both of us were surprised at the number of people with this disease and the variety of ages and conditions.

 

We stopped off at Whole Foods on our way home and closed the store down at 9pm with over $100 less in the wallet.   But, pay now for good food or later for medical bills I say.  And  this may well be proving to be true.

 

 

Today David went in for another doctor appointment.

 

He got his 3rd shot of velcade for this round of treatment and a drip of zometa to help strengthen his bones.   No one seems sure what the ankle soreness is.  It comes and goes.  Problematic Saturday night. Gone Sunday night.  Back Monday.  The swelling of his ankles and feet is gone but he has some sort of bulge just below his liver.  Only visible when he’s standing, not when he’s sitting.  No pain there.

 

But the REALLY GOOD NEWS is how far his numbers had dropped  after only 1 round of treatment. 

 

They take his blood before he sees the doctor every visit.  But all the numbers aren’t usually available that quickly.  So today they were talking about the numbers from last Tuesday March 6, the first day of cycle 2 before treatment began again.  

 

His doctor was amazed.  He had told us we should expect to see some change in the numbers after 2 or 3 complete cycles.  Given the severity of disease David presented with, Dr. Wright had predicted that he might need between 4 and 6 rounds of treatment to get back to normal numbers.  But happily, after only 1 round of treatment his too high numbers have dropped by 2/3 to 3/4 and his too low are moving back up toward normal.  Some are not just close to the normal range but actually back in the normal range while . 

 

If this keeps up, he will have many fewer treatments than was originally thought.  Apparently such a quick drop is not common.  We are thrilled and hoping this keeps up.

 

Are we happy??   You betcha!!  Ecstatic is more like it!!

We want to thank Nancy Mills for her gift of The China Study and Colin Campbell for such wonderful research on diet and cancer.  We really do think this diet is having a very great effect on his health and these numbers.

And Thank You to all of you for your good wishes, thoughts, prayers and encouraging comments on this blog.  Having all that good energy directed our way is a BIG benefit.  We LOVE hearing from you.