February 24, 2009 - Making Sure

From the very first moment that you hear the word “cancer” in reference to your future, your mind begins to race. You do your best to put it aside and live your life as if cancer wasn’t part of it, but no matter how hard you try, it is still part of your being. You do your best to keep it from becoming who you are, but it never goes away, it just takes a break now and then.

It becomes increasingly important that you find good news in what is taking place. Be it, no nausea from the chemo to still having hair to comb every morning. Yet, nothing means much until you hear something good from the doctor. It’s been a month now since this all started and I’m still awaiting that first real positive sign that things might start going in a better direction. Today was the day that would hopefully be that day. I had a 9 AM appointment with a myeloma expert at the Mayo Clinic with a follow-up with my nephrologist in the afternoon.

As I had mentioned last Friday, my uneducated eye saw some good and some maybe not so good on the blood work-up from a week ago. My creatinine had dropped from 3.6 to 3.1. To me, it was eye popping as this was THE number that I understood. However, the BUN number which is a ratio that also explains how the kidneys are functioning went in the wrong direction. Today, somebody that knew what they were doing would be able to clarify and set the record straight.

Dr. Joseph Mikhail is an oncologist that specializes in multiple myeloma. He not only knows his stuff, he really knows how to explain it to a layman. Walking out of that appointment, both Julia and I felt better about where we were. He agreed with the current treatment that Dr. Obenchain has prescribed. That, in itself, makes you feel better about the direction you are heading. He went into detail on next steps including the biggie, the bone marrow transplant which really seems to be the end game for this disease. I’ll go into that when it get is a little closer.

The day was completed with a visit to Dr. Hogan, the nephrologist that I have been working with from day one. When he saw my blood work, he was more than excited as he dove down much further than our untrained eyes could go. He basically said that at this point, everything seems to be working. He about fell over when we described how religious we had been with the diet. In his own words, “nobody goes this far. We just hope to get them to modify a little bit.”

I have to admit, I have been more than a little anal with this diet thing. It’s amazing how good you can be when there is this imaginary little devil with a gun pointed at your head 24 hours a day. Hopefully, we’ll get a break from the dietician tomorrow.