Sore Leg, Pain Meds and Visitors... oh my!

Multiple Myeloma

Chris posted a little about his diagnosis in his post earlier this week, but I had started collecting information and tonight seemed like a good time to add it to my blog.   We'll probably have more information about his specifics sometime next week.  Once we are released from the hospital I still plan to update the blog, but it likely won't be a daily thing like it has been.   There is a subscribe option in the upper right hand corner if you want to know by e-mail when one of us posts.

Multiple Myeloma is a type of blood cancer.  There are two other main types of blood cancer, leukemia and lymphoma.   Of these three it is the 2nd most common.  It occurs in the plasma cells inside the bone marrow.  Plasma cells are white blood cells that produce disease and infection fighting antibodies in your body. Myeloma cells prevent the normal production of antibodies, leaving your body's immune system weakened and susceptible to infection.  It can cause bone lesions which destroy and weaken the bones.  

It is not considered curable, but often is something that can be managed as a chronic disease.

It is treated primarily by a hematologist (blood doctor), but usually also involves other specialists.

Most people diagnosed are older than 65.

Men are more likely to develop it than women.

The odds of getting it are approx .67%

Tom Brokaw was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma in 2013 and has written an autobiography called "A Lucky Life Interrupted"

                                     Typical Day

     Today ended up being a pretty average hospital day.   The pain from his bone marrow biopsy made it hard for him to sleep last night, but they did their best to treat the pain.   The pain meds would work really well at first but quickly wear off.
   
     This morning started with another round if dialysis, this time with one of the techs that he really likes, Ryan.   Ryan is young, but very experienced.   His father does dialysis at home and he has been helping his dad since he was 7.   His mom is also a tech in the dialysis department. 

     During dialysis had a visit from the nephrology (kidney) team.   They are happy with how is he responding to dialysis and were going to work today to set him up on dialysis outpatient.  Outpatient is usually only 3 days a week, 4 hours at a time but they can increase it to four if they need to.  Then shortly after had a visit from the BMT (Bone Marrow Transplant) team.   They are currently his primary team simply because of balancing patient load in the hospital.   They gave us the good news that they think he is stable enough and can probably go home soon.  The mentioned tomorrow as a possibility, but we've learned that hospitals are usually horrible at predicting so we'll just have to see how things pan out.  It seems like ages ago that we arrived and so much has changed.   Getting back to the comforts of home can't happen soon enough.

      Today he had several visitors.   First a surprise visit from his uncle Adelbert.    Then this evening a visit from my uncle Alan and aunt Teresa.   While they were visiting we also had a visit from some members of our church.  It was the end of two long, tough and painful days and the visitors were a great distraction.   The nurses were also finally able to work with the doctors to come up with a better pain solution, and our nurse from Monday (Brittney) is here again tonight and promising to make sure he gets them on schedule so he can get some good sleep.