A Blessing and a Curse

I got results of blood work done Monday today. M-spike went from .7 to .54 g/dl. In case you might like a refresher, the M-spike started at 2.3 g/dl back in August. I've come a long way in a few short months.

I was hoping I would be told I could get off the Revlimid and Dexamethasone today. Instead, I was told that one of two things must happen before I can get off the drugs I am taking. Either M-spike has to go to zero or it has to be the same for three consecutive months. So, even though it is low, and it could be low enough now, I won't know for at least two more months and most likely four or five or six more months or more after it is all said and done.

I complained profusely to my Oncologist about the side effects of the drugs which number around a dozen and a half and are making me somewhat impatient with the relentlessness of it. I was told to experiment with half a dose of steroid Thursday and half Monday. I was also told I should start getting used to the drugs. At times I think I am getting used to them but other times not. It seems like the highs and lows are not as high and low as they were at first.

If I were to stop taking the drugs now, the theory is that the cancer cells remaining are the most difficult to kill. Therefore, those cells would begin to multiply and be much more difficult or impossible to eradicate. No one really knows what REALLY is going on. We are depending on a test which monitors the "secretions" of the monoclonal plasma cells. Theoretically, the plasma cells do not become non-secretory because of the drugs.

Therefore, based on the M-spike, which is a measure of the protein secreted by the plasma cells, 80 percent or so of the monoclonal plasma cells have been eradicated. But we don't really know that. We are just inferring that and assuming there is a 100% correlation. The only way to find out for sure what has happened is to do a bone marrow biopsy and that isn't even a sure thing because the plasma cells tend to cluster in the marrow so there is some variability depending on where the sample is taken. I suppose, for now, we will just have to trust that the plasma cells have died.

Thanks for stopping by.

I'll talk to you later.