Yes. I did ask for a plan. Yes. I did
say that being able to fight back was better than having to sit and
have cancer knock me about. Yes. I did say Sheri and I would be ready
to go and tackle my multiple myeloma again, if only we had a plan.
Well. It would seem that there are
plans and then there are... plans. I figured our plan would be more
of the same. I thought we'd take the medicines we've been using and
tweak them into a different order and strength. After all, that's
what we've been doing.
I wasn't prepared to have to toss aside
what we've been doing, almost completely, and head down a different
road; in this case, the road less taken. The treatment that makes up
our new plan is really new and pretty cutting edge. Obviously, that's
a good thing, but the process is very involved and means spending
quite a bit of time in the treatment chair.
I admit that I've been spoiled. Since
my stem cell transplant, I've been able to take my chemo and other
medicines in pill form, at home. When they made me sick, I was right
there ready to lie down at any time and throw up in bucket of my own
choosing.
In the immortal words of the
not-so-immortal Mary Hopkin, “Those were the days my friend, we
thought they'd never end.” Yeah, well...
The new plan calls for, six (maybe
five) medicines to be deployed before I take the chemo itself, and
more steroids for two days after. The first course needs to be given
over two days; about five hours the first day and two to three the
second. The whole process includes a high volume of steroids which WE
KNOW make me very uncomfortable, in fact borderline crazy. While I
realize crazy is not a medical description, it is certainly less
offensive than bats**t which probably better describes what happens
when I take minor doses of steroids, let alone the copious amounts I
have to take with this new plan.
I have to take the majority of the
medicines while in the clinic because of the worries over side
effects. The main concern is something called infusion reaction; that
is, reacting badly at the site of, and because of, the infusion
itself. I have had an initial bad reaction to everything I've been
given through this fight. I think being in the clinic at time of
insertion is just what the doctor ordered.
I have to say, this is the most nervous
I have been in a long, long time. While I know a lot about the
treatment, I don't really know what it is all going to mean to me.
Also, it is a whole different approach. Previous treatments I've
endured have been aimed at attacking existing cancer cells. This new
one seems to be inserted at the DNA level to boost your own immunize
system to put up the fight. Now, is it just mean, or does that sound
worrisome to you?
In the somewhat limited use the drug
has had, it seems to be very successful, so we've got that going for
us, which is nice.
But, here is a partial description of
the drug's mechanism of action: “This is an IgG1k human monoclonal
antibody produced in a Chinese hamster ovary cell line.” Take a
second and think about that. Not just a hamster, but a Chinese
hamster. Maybe Chinese hamster is like a “wink wink” so that
competing companies are thrown off. Maybe it actually means a hamster
taken from Bob's (not his real name) Pet Store.
I have a tremendous amount of respect
for the people who work so hard in cancer research. They are
fighting to save my life. There aren't words, not in my book anyway,
to say how much that means to me. But at what point do you look
around the lab and say, “Hey. That Chinese hamster in the corner!
Let's give her a go?”
I expect the treatment to begin this
week, although it may be hard to put two consecutive days together,
we'll have to see. But this whole treatment alternative has me on
edge, thrown for a loop and any other similar cliches you wish to
bring to the game.
I will say this, and it absolutely
true... you can look it up... On top of all this, I have to at least
save some concern for the fact that game wardens have been trying to
catch a bear (brown, I hope) that has been roaming our town for over
two months. How's that for a line of concern: a Chinese hamster to a
Maine brown bear? You gotta laugh.
There are a variety of versions of
the story that gives this blog its name. The pony is the constant in
all of them. A man is on his way to a party when he comes across a
young boy shoveling ass over tea kettle at an enormous mountain of
manure. The man asks the child if he wouldn't rather go with him to
the party than shovel all that poop. The kid says, “No way man.
With all that poop... there must be a pony in there somewhere
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