No significant response

The last few days Dad has been into work to finish up year end operations. He travels in with his heating pad, stays as long as he can tolerate the discomfort. He has still been having back spasms at night making them restless and making his routine activities like reaching for something on the floor a challenge. He can't bend at the waist to reach, he has to get down on a knee. I keep telling him bending isn't good body mechanics, but I think the whole idea of kneeling still bothers him.

Today he met with Dr. Kazjdan. You can really tell that he has lost weight. Today his pants were really loose and baggy. Mom says he doesn't want to eat dinner, he just isn't hungry for anything. This is worrisome since he has to keep up his strength and energy to help his body best fight the cancer. Dr. Kazhdan thinks the reason his back is spasming because his cardiologist started him back on his cholesterol medication. That type of medication can cause muscle spasms and when he stopped taking it earlier his back spasms stopped. He restarted it on Friday of last week and Sunday his muscle spasms were back. So today he will stop taking it and see if it helps. If so then we know it is this that is causing the problem.

The kidney specialist felt that his kidney function tests were higher than normal not because of the myeloma but because of the antibiotic he was taking as a precaution to prevent infection while he was undergoing his velcade treatment.

What is disappointing is that the tests show that after the first round of treatment, there wasn't the dramatic response we were hoping for. His protein level is still elevated, although slightly better than before. Depending on who you talk to this may or may not be a problem for his bypass. Some feel his level is fine for surgery, others feel it is still too high. The question becomes do we wait for bypass until his labs look better and risk his heart, or do we go through with it. The answer is we go through with it. Once his heart is fixed we can really focus on this cancer therapy. And since he didn't have a great response to the initial round, his therapy will really need to be intensive. Depending on how he does after his bypass with the revlimid, they may change the therapy to something else.

What was also concerning was his white blood cell (WBC) count. Remember early I mentioned that chemo can suppress the formation of all of your blood cells, including those that help fight infection like white blood cells. Today Dad's WBCs were low, much lower than they had been. This is worrisome since he is at risk for infection. This may be due to the chemo that he had, although that was several weeks ago. The other thing that could be causing this is the antiviral medication can also cause his WBCs to fall as well. So today he will stop taking this medication as well.

As for the pain, Dad is to the point that he is willing to try anything, including acupuncture. He really wants to get an adjustment from a chiropracter, but that idea was nixed by Dr. Kazhdan. I have the name of an acupuncturist and we will see. Hopefully he won't come out looking like a soaker hose.

As for fluids, they were planning to start his bone strengthener today, which is given by IV. This medication can damage his kidneys, so he was suppose to get IV fluids today. Elizabeth tried, I'm not sure how many times and was not successful. Then she called upon me. I was really worried about this, I was hoping and praying that I wouldn't have to poke him again. I even told mom "please don't make me stick him." And just like I thought, it wasn't successful. I tried 3 times, but each time was no luck. Elizabeth tried again twice after this, but no luck. So Dr. Kazhdan opted not to start the medication until he gets his portacath which will be put in when he has surgery. This is an access port to his blood vessels that allow them to draw blood from and given medications and fluids through without having to poke him every time. Now we are just worried his vessels will be ready for the surgery.

Please keep praying, we were all hoping for a better response than what we got with this first round.