I started the second course of chemotherapy using the new cocktail of drugs called CyBorD: cyclophosphamide, bortezomib and dexamethasone. Ya just got to be impressed by that line-up of fancy Latin names for that nasty little prickly army of toxic chemicals that we have to wear gloves to handle and that I gleefully (albeit not without some trepidation) ingest every week. Next week they’ll also infuse me with zoledronic acid, a drug that is supposed to strengthen bones. So far, so good. I may have said this before, but I will reiterate that the staff at the Cancer Centre at the hospital here in the Comox Valley is really fine. I feel that I’m being looked after. I have a person I can reach on the phone if I have any issues or questions and they’ve given me a letter to take to the Emergency Department if for any reason I should need to go there.

We won’t know for a while yet what effects the chemo drugs are having on my myeloma. It’s a waiting game, but I suppose the whole process is pretty much of a waiting game. There are so many questions and very few answers at the moment. In my last post I told you that I was going to see an orthopaedic surgeon in Campbell River. Well, we drove up to CR on Monday (the 9th) to his clinic in Willow Point. His name is Dr. Deke Botsford and he is a specialist in hip and joint replacement surgery, but he’s also capable of dealing with the issue I have which is the lesions in my femurs. To be precise, the lesions are in what’s called the distal part of the femur which is the part of the femur closest to the knee. He told us that that was an unusual site for myeloma lytic lesions to form but he also said that there were treatment possibilities. So, the lytic lesions are the result of paraproteins in my blood excavating my bone marrow thereby weakening my bone and getting in the way of the creation of hemoglobin. The excavations are called lesions. It may be that the chemotherapy treatments I’m on will arrest the growth of these lesions but then again maybe not. Botsford could drive a rod up my femur from my knee all the way to my hip joint so as to stabilize the bone and keep pain at bay. Or, he figured I might benefit from radiation therapy. I expect my oncologist will want to wait for a while to see what the chemotherapy treatments are doing before launching into another therapy. I see Botsford again in early February at the hospital in Campbell River to get an x-ray of my right femur and to assess the state of affairs in my bones. It seems that my right leg especially is weakened by the paraprotein excavations, but it is not likely to spontaneously break. It could break if I fell, for instance, or banged it a little too hard on a door jamb or something. I’ll try hard to see that doesn’t happen.

As far as pain goes, I’m dealing with it. I’ve reduced my intake of hydromorphone, my main opioid line of defence, but things seem stable enough. The zoledronic acid has a nasty side effect in that it can create elevated levels of pain in the back so I won’t be trying to wean myself off of hydromorphone anytime soon. Besides, if I do back off a bit with the hydromorphone, something I’ve tried a couple of times, I can feel pain creeping back into my ribs and back so I don’t think I want that to happen.

I have been going out a lot, of course, to the lab, the hospital and to doctors’ offices, but late yesterday afternoon Carolyn and I went to the Cumberland Brewing Company to meet with some friends. That’s the first social outing I’ve been on in three months or so. It was taxing, and today I’m exhausted, but it was also good to get out amongst friends and sip on a bitter. Even though I’m very tired I still managed a visit from a good friend and former student now living in Nanaimo. We drank tea out of mugs she made and delivered to us three weeks ago. Everyone has been so kind and generous. Gifts of food and goodies keep coming. I really feel the love.