Cancer Free!!! (At Least for Now)

I did make it home on Sunday the 9th, after three and a half weeks at Huntsman Hospital. Of course, it's great to be here. I told the hospital staff that despite their great care, I really needed to be home to get well. And I am getting well.

Progress is slow, which is to be expected, although I am doing much better than after my first transplant, when I stayed in bed or on the couch in front of the TV for close to a month after coming home. I have been able to walk around the nearby park every day and to do a few light chores and projects around the house. Early on I had to stop and rest every few minutes from any physical activity that I was doing.

In my last post I talked about heart arrhythmias, and that's what has been holding me back. The slightest over-exertion causes one to kick in, sometimes making my heart beat too fast, other times too slow. Sometimes they were very debilitating, causing a great feeling of weakness, and the need to lie down before I fell down.

This Wednesday I went to see the University of Utah Hospital cardiologist assigned to me, Dr. Shean. He said I still had fluid around my heart (lingering pericarditis), but not enough to bother me, and that aside from the arrhythmias, my heart is fine. As to those, he proposed to do nothing at this time, and see if I can get well on my own, which approach I like. Otherwise the next steps are heart medicine and a pacemaker.

And I think I am getting better. This past week I have been able to walk faster and work harder and longer, with fewer and fewer episodes of arrhythmia. I even did a set of weights and ten sets of stairs. I did get arrhythmias but they were light and over quickly, and felt almost as if I could control them.

After the cardiologist, I went to see my oncologist, Dr. Zangari to find out how effective the transplant had been at reducing or eradicating the cancer.  The good news is that, at least right now, I am in remission--cancer free. The tests could find no evidence of the disease in my body. The bad news is, and always has been, that the myeloma will come back. It always does. Because of this, and because I have high risk factors, I will go on maintenance chemo right away.

We were highly disappointed to learn that Dr. Zangari will be leaving Huntsman at the end of July to take a position at the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy in Arkansas. He is the main reason we came to Huntsman. We are quite anxious about who our oncologist will be, and if they really are a myeloma expert who can give me individualized help.

One last thing: I took a bad fall. We were leaving the hospital last Monday and I was texting while walking in the parking lot and fell over a concrete barrier. Both hands were full and I went down hard, scraping an ankle, both knees, a forearm, a hip, a shoulder, and my head. Fortunately, we were at the hospital, so we went back up the clinic and they fixed me right up, after a CT scan showed my head was OK and a transfusion of platelets to insure I didn't bleed out internally. I'm pretty scarred up, but there's no permanent damage.

So, we are settling into another "new normal" and life is good. Sometime in the future the myeloma will be back, but not today. Today belongs to us and we're making the best of it.