Wednesday

Today was exciting as it seems that Deb's labs indicate that perhaps at the Dr Nair visit Friday we will be released for home. That's cool!

Tomorrow's labs will tell if the upward trend is real. If so,we will schedule a port removal so the triple line in Deb's jugular vein will be removed. Pure magic to me!
Many of the meds have already been dropped.

So, after a short combat nap this afternoon and a simple supper, we joined about 75 classmates at a reception/technical presentation by the head honcho of the myeloma institute Dr Barlogie.

He is an vibrant speaker and certainly the top statistical presenter I've ever heard. His explanation of the statistics showing the effectiveness of various chemo blends and the time required to get various levels of effectiveness in place was remarkable. He spoke in plain words about extending life, desire to defeat this cancer, and the pain folks go through in order to get to remission. He acknowledged that the clinic here is much tougher on patients but gets better results.

The charts he shared also clearly indicated that this is a deadly awful disease and that a certain number of people die from it. Untreated or poorly treated looks like about 1.5 years life expectancy.

Takeaway points:
>High risk patients treated here (like Deb) who survive out past 3 years will surpass the life expectancy of low risk cases.

>High risk patients must compress the treatment time frame to prevent the cancer from regaining a foothold. In practical terms, we cannot stay at home very long between treatment cycles if Deb is to survive long term.

>Although myeloma is considered incurable, long term results here are close to changing incurable to curable within a few more years.

>Even though the science involved is way over our heads, we must trust those here who do understand it.

>This is no picnic. This cancer kills!

Here are some pix of Dr Barlogie in action: