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“Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.” – Gen. George S. Patton
We have had bits of respite here and there after Dave’s relapse in year 5 or somewhere in that time frame. Then things just started being troublesome. Little annoying little things that Dr. VanRhee was watching and suspicious of. Each time, his suspicions were spot on. Sadly when we come home and meet with our local, we find ourselves having to defend the next steps. It troubles me to the point I may have to write him a note about it. Since Covid, I haven’t been able to attend in person anything with Dave. Anyway, Dave leaves confident and then he comes home from the local distressed. Our local knows Dr. VanRhee and I keep encouraging him to call him personally and get his questions answered directly on the course and path we are on. Sigh… It shouldn’t be so hard sometimes.
So from my previous post you see that we’ve had a wonderful Covid year with major life events for our adult children. Expecting our first grand baby the end of April. A girl. Angelica, our daughter-in-law is keeping a tradition my mother started and giving her a middle name Montana and I share. My mother would be fighting back tears of joy over that one. She’s having an easy pregnancy except feeling tired more than usual. But that’s normal. Incubators eat up a lot of energy! haha
And our daughter, Montana is engaged to the man she kept looking and hoping for (but he found her!). They are perfect together and we enjoy him a lot as well as his lovely family. He’s a Maryland boy, so it took her back to the east coast and living in wonderful Annapolis, MD. I’ve enjoyed several visits to their cute little place and Dave went for one visit after the kitchen remodel and was able to meet his family. I had Dr. VanRhee cracking up when I told him over the FaceTime link that he would have been proud of Dave. He entered the home and looked at everyone and said, “OK…anybody had any recent fevers? Have you been out of the country in the last month?….” Dr. VanRhee threw his masked head back and laughed out loud! It was a joyous evening to be sure.
“Rejoice with your family in the beautiful land of life.” – Albert Einstein
Back to Dave and the issues we are facing. His immune system has been consistently alarmingly low. The last two treatment line attempts have not produced a good result. The next in line is Blenrep, which is new, but with Dave’s T Cells being so low Dr. VanRhee is just not comfortable using it right now. It will also preclude him, or make it much harder, to get on the new off the shelf CarT cell trials coming available early this year. And with his T Cells low even CarT would not be an option. Because he doesn’t have enough to manufacturer more. With all that in mind, he has decided to give Dave a “Boost” of some of his stored stem cells. Much like we give platelets and blood transfusions. He will have to have some chemo but it won’t be as invasive as a transplant. I’ve heard from a couple patients that they got a boost and it helped. So back again we will go and stay for a bit to get him thru this next hopeful effort. It will be particularly difficult because of Covid and I won’t be allowed into the facility with him. In talking with someone at length today while trying to sort out our lodging, she shared with me that it has been particularly hard on the caregiver as she/he has little to no interaction with anyone. She/he drops their loved one off and then waits at the apt to pick them up. It’s very isolating. I’m glad she mentioned it to me so I can better prepare myself for that unique situation.
In all of this however, I have to tell you that Dave and I have lived well. We’ve worked to not have Myeloma front and center in our lives and prevent us from enjoying fully our friends and family to the best of our ability. Which is why there a few long droughts in my blogging. I’ve said before and will say again, sometimes its hard to find Myeloma patients because they are out living their lives. And that’s a really good thing.
So if you are a prayerful person, definitely keep Dave in your prayers. If you are not but exercise “good thoughts,” we’ll take that to. I’ll do my best to keep you posted as we move along thru this next step in the long marathon of Myeloma. I appreciate you more than you can probably realize. As Jan always calls you her “Myeloma Blessings.” And blessings you most certainly are.
