1 Year - post transplant treatment

It's been a long, long, long, long, long... time since I posted. If you follow Amanda's blog "The Stewart's Space" http://randastewart.blogspot.com/ then you probably already know what's going on in our life. It has been since January when I last posted, since then we have been making our regular trips to Dr. Te's Office every 4 weeks. There were several times that I know I should have posted, like April 1st which would have been the 2 year anniversary of my stay in Centennial Hills Hospital when they isolated me for several days and didn't diagnois me for what my problem really was. Or a couple of weeks later on April 16th when it would have been 2 years since Dr. Smith in St. George first saw the protein spike in my blood work and did the follow up test to confirm that something wasn't right. Then on April 19th - 22nd when I was correctly diagnoised by Dr. Smith and then by Dr. Te to confirm with my first bone marrow biopsy, full body bone scan and other tests. I also should have posted on March and June to remember how one year ago I was in LDS Hospital in Salt Lake for my Stem Cell Transplants. This post is kind of a one year later story because on July 5th and 6th I had the blood tests, x-rays and bone marrow biopsy to see how my body is doing one year after the second Stem Cell Transplant last June 20th. I have some of my test results back and wanted to share some good news. One of the main multiple myeloma markers that they track is the "m" spike or Monoclonal Spike which get's checked on me every month that I have appointments. In April 2010 the results of my first test was 6.14 g/dL (grams / deciliters). When they first told me about this number, Dr. Te told us it needed to be down to about 1 before I would be ready for my Stem Cell Transplant. It took a while but I got close and hand the first transplant in March 2011, but by May the number had gone to 1.43 so I was scheduled for the second transplant. At the 100 day mark in Sept. 2011 it was right at 1.0, I was placed on a daily prescription for Revlimid for maintenance and over the last several months the number has steadily gone down, 0.91 - 0.71 - 0.64 - 0.61 - 0.54 - 0.34 - 0.32 and finally the last test on July 5th came up 0.26 g/dL. I guess that is what I get for eating a little poison daily. I guess I'll keep doing it until they tell me not to. The other good news from the tests is that the amount of bad stuff in my bone marrow biopsy was too small to register during the most recent test. I don't have any details on the results, but expect to get those details and also the results of the full body bone scan x-rays when I go to Dr. Te's office in about two weeks. As a side note, Dr. Te moved into his new offices on July 1st and it was very nice, it should work out very well for him and really has room to expand his practice if he chooses to. I have written before how I really appreciate the care I have received from Dr. Te and his staff. On July 6th, he really went above and beyond. I was scheduled that morning for my bone marrow biopsy at 8:30. They put me to sleep to do it - I have done it awake before, but it wasn't pleasant. At about 10:00 I went into the infusion room to get my zometa bone treatment. At about 11:00 I was done and ready to leave, unfortunately that morning Patty wasn't feeling to well and I drove myself there. Dr. Te would not let me drive myself home, so he drove me out to Coral Canyon while his wife followed us. I am pretty sure I would have made it there safely, but he would not let me try. Thanks again for Dr. Te. Unfortunately, for as good as my news has been, Patty has had a pretty rough spring and summer. We're going to some specialists and hope to get some good direction in the next month or so. I'm not going into much more about it, and if you've read Amanda's blog, she has a lot more detail. After we get some more direction from her specialists, I'll include more about her dealings with Parkinson's. I hope everyone is having a great summer. We had some issues over last weekend, but we really enjoyed going to Parowan last Saturday for the Mortensen Family reunion and enjoyed seeing a catching up with everyone that was able to make it there. A special thanks to everyone that helped put it together. Mom told me that we had about 55 attend and that 23 weren't able to come. It was a good turnout and hopefully next time we'll have an even higher percentage attend. It's a busy couple of weeks for our son Josh. In June he graduated from MidWestern University in Glendale AZ with a Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) degree and then started work for Kindred Hospital here in Las Vegas. This Friday he takes his national test and then around the first of August he takes the Nevada test to get his license. We all wish him well. Amanda and Ryan are relaxing this month, well not really, Ryan started his graduate program at Touro University in Henderson for Physical Therapy. In August they will continue their quest to have a little one or two or..., we are looking forward to success. Well, this has gone on plenty long enough, I'll try to be better, but I wouldn't expect too much from me. Thank you all for your good thoughts and prayers, maybe you could send a few Patty's way, and to the rest of our family. We could use all the help available. Until next time.