@lenalidomide

February 18 Update

~ Roger JG Albert ~ 2 Comments

[I’ve written about some of the issues I’m having with myeloma before, many times. Because it’s such a presence in my life I can’t help but write about it often. Sometimes, I write about it to provide an update on my treatments and side effects. That’s what this post is about. It’s somewhat technical, but you don’t have to know everything about the drugs involved to understand the thread of my story.]

I sit here in my chair warmed by our new(ish) mini-split HVAC that lives on the wall up to my left with it’s companion outside, visible from the large window just behind me. It’s just after nine in the morning and it’s cold today but clear with the temperature hovering around the zero Celsius mark. We have the wood stove on too because the electric heat just doesn’t cut it when the temperature gets near or below zero. 

Myeloma is always at the forefront of my mind, but now pernicious anemia, and my opioid dependency are butting in and taking up some space of their own in my consciousness. So, in this post I’ll discuss the challenges posed by these issues for me every day. 

I’m so conflicted these days I’m almost completely immobilized. My myeloma saga is putting me in a space where I’m not sure what to think. I’m off my chemo meds for at least one cycle, approximately a month. My local oncology GP as well as my consulting oncologist in Victoria can’t detect much myeloma protein in my blood, if any at all, so it seems logical to give my body a break from the meds. Fair enough. However, for the last 7 cycles the combination of chemo meds (lenalidomide and dexamethasone) along with the monoclonal antibody Daratumumab have effectively erased most, if not all, traces of cancer in my blood. I’ve come to appreciate the protection I get from these meds even though they produce some nasty side effects, peripheral neuropathy** in particular. Still, I know that myeloma will always return. The last time I went off chemo meds was some time ago. I was taking a lenalidomide* based cocktail at 10 mgs per cycle but then I got a severe abdominal rash and had to shut that down. 

After that, I was moved to a drug called bortezomib, along with dexamethasone, and cyclophosphamide. The bortezomib (Velcade is its trade name) had some horrendous side effects for me, threatening to put me in a wheelchair or worse. I quit taking these meds out of desperation, but found that soon my paraproteins were increasing rapidly in my blood. That scared the poop out of me. Time to make another move. 

That’s when I was switched back to lenalidomide (Revlimid is the trade name) but at a minimal dose of 2.5 mgs along with 12 mgs of dexamethasone and an infusion of some 500 mls of Daratumumab per cycle.  That’s the cocktail I just stopped taking. Next month I see my local oncology GP for another assessment. It will be interesting to see what my bloodwork reveals. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about it. 

To complicate matters, I’m trying to wean myself off hydromorphone (an opioid) and gabapentin , both are widely prescribed pain relievers. Opioid dependency is no picnic. I was first prescribed hydromorphone when I was diagnosed with myeloma in the fall of 2019. Since then the goal has been to fine tune my doses to get the maximum effect while leaving me more or less sentient. It’s been difficult. For some time now I’ve been taking two types of hydromorphone, a slow-release 3 mg capsule and a 2 mg ‘breakthrough’ dose. I’ve taken one 3mg capsule in the morning and two in the evening. Now, as I try to get off this medication, I’m restricting myself to one 3mg in the evenings and none during the day. Last night I thought I’d be tough and not take any meds at bedtime. Well, I soon got schooled by hydromorphone for trying to back off too quickly. By 11 PM I was downstairs into the medicine shelf getting a 3mg capsule to take. The thing is I was not prepared yet for a full withdrawal. My body let me know very quickly. The pain in my back returned with a vengeance, and I couldn’t stand to have anything against my skin. I was completely distracted by itchiness all over my body. Thoroughly unpleasant. I expect that as I restrict my intake of hydromorphone more and more, that I will have fewer pain issues. Ironically, opioids can contribute to pain, especially during withdrawal. 

The reason I’m trying to get off hydromorphone is because of the success we’ve had in dealing with myeloma. I’m thinking that with my myeloma symptoms under control, I may not need as much pain relief as when it was in full bloom. 

As far as the pernicious anemia is concerned, I should have my B12 up to acceptable levels. I’ve injected B12 (cyanocobalamin) eleven times now in the last six weeks. That should do it. However, it will take up to six months before I experience any kind of improvement to my health. It would be nice if I only had one issue to deal with but I think I have things more or less under control for the time being. 

_____________________________________________________________________

•For a list of common side effects of lenalidomide check out this website: https://www.drugs.com/sfx/revlimid-side-effects.html

**I am a member of a myeloma support group. We had a Zoom meeting last Thursday. We are all at different levels of treatment and on various medications but we pretty much all have one thing in common: peripheral neuropathy. The neuropathy in my left hand is now starting to interfere with my ability to type. Given that I write a fair bit, that’s not at all welcome.

#86. ???????

~ Roger JG Albert

I woke up this morning at seven twenty three and got out of bed at seven twenty eight. In that five minutes between seven twenty three and seven twenty eight I had a couple of thinks1. These were little thinks, nothing momentous or earth-shattering. They were thinks about what I would do today. I decided on a couple of things to work on, writing a blog post is one and the other is going down to my studio to continue a clean up I started some time ago in preparation for some work I want to do.

Today is the day after my Daratumumab infusion at the hospital. That’s a bi-monthly event for me. We get to the hospital for a nine o’clock appointment. I grab a coffee after being logged in at the Wellness Centre then make my way to the Cancer Care Centre. After getting settled in they hook me up to an IV drip and then call the pharmacy to tell them I’ve arrived and that they can prep the Dara. Yesterday it took over an hour for the pharmacy to get the Dara to the Cancer Care Centre. I waited patiently but with a little frustration, I must admit. After about ten fifteen they released the Dara starting the infusion. I read my book for a bit but soon fell asleep. I woke up at eleven forty five. Cool. The infusion was almost done. It generally takes about one and a half hours. At about twelve twenty, Carolyn picked me up and we came home.

Along with the Dara, as you well know, I take dexamethasone and lenalidomide. These are the chemo drugs. Dara is not a chemo drug, but a monoclonal antibody. Click on the word Daratumumab in the paragraph above for some good information about Dara. Dex and Lena are very different drugs that do different things in the blood. Dexamethasone is a steroid and has some annoying side effects like interfering with sleep. That it did last night. I slept in fits and starts and got maybe four hours of sleep total. I won’t get much sleep until Monday.

My life these days is organized around my chemotherapy. Of course, my Dara infusions predominate, but the dex has the most immediate and dramatic effects aside from the hydromorphone. I most often go to bed before nine o’clock in the evening. I rarely go to sleep right away, however. Yesterday, I did fall asleep after going to bed at eight thirty. I woke up about forty-five minutes later with a start. I had gone to sleep with the cat laying between my legs. I dreamt that the cat had been joined by my brother. I woke up with nobody on the bed with me. I was startled when I woke up but relieved too because I find it uncomfortable to have the cat sleep with me. I mean, I could easily get her off the bed, but I’m a sucker for the cat. She rules.

A preoccupation I have these days relates to the purpose of life and how to determine what to do with the time I have left to live. I have all kinds of time every day to think about things so off I go. Obviously there will be some physical restrictions that hamper the kinds of activities I can do; after all, I am seventy-four years old. One serious big think I’m having these days is coming to grips with the kinds of activities I am still capable of doing amongst the many I did during my younger years. I don’t want to simply lay back and avoid any activities that would require of me exertion that might tire me or leave me incapable of doing anything for a couple of days afterwards. I’m still strong enough, but I’m not as well coordinated as I used to be. I’m learning that I have to strike a balance between what I want to do and what I’m really capable of doing. There is a slew of activities I did when I was younger that are beyond me now. I have to be realistic about these things. I cranked up the chainsaw the other day and chopped a bit of wood. That was fine. I could do that. But what I want to do in terms of sculpture would require that I use saws and chisels for a sustained period of time. I don’t know if I have the sustainability to sculpt, but I know I can paint and draw. Whether I have the desire to do these things is another question.

____________________________________________________________________________

1 This is a verb being used as a noun, but it’s probably not original.

#79. My Numbers!

~ Roger JG Albert ~ 4 Comments

This is the post I’ve been looking forward to writing for some time now. It documents a radical improvement in my myeloma situation. Now, if only I could find a way to rapidly decrease the problems and pain I get from arthritis and degenerative disk syndrome, I would almost be back to a normal life. Of course, I keep forgetting that I’m 74 years old and that I’ll never be able to do the things now that I used to do just ten years ago. But enough grousing about my limitations, it’s time to focus on some recent victories that have everything to do with my numbers.

For me, the one thing that came along with the diagnosis of multiple myeloma or bone marrow cancer was (and is) an obsession and fascination with my numbers. I wrote about this earlier in a blog post on December 17th, 2019 (https://rogerjgalbert.com/2019/12/17/access-to-medical-records/). Now is a good time to revisit my obsession with my numbers because I’ve recently had some pretty spectacular changes in some of my critical numbers. I concur with Paul Kleutghen when he writes:”We (patients and caregivers) have all become so attuned to focusing on numbers that any excursion out of the “normal” causes worries and sleepless nights.”* I generally don’t lose sleep over anything, but, like Kleutghen, I am focussed on my numbers, and I get pretty upset if my numbers are going in the wrong direction or stand outside of the reference numbers.** Of course it’s an entirely different story when my numbers go in the right direction. Numbers are important to me and you’ll see why in this post.

My numbers refers to the lab results I get from frequent visits to the Vancouver Island Heath Authority (VIHA) lab in Courtenay, or to the hospital lab. As a regular thing I get checks of my blood, my white blood cells, red blood cells, monocytes, hemoglobin, neutrophils, eosinophils, basophils, etcetera. I also get regular tests of my kidney function by analysis of creatinine in my blood serum. (I have access to all my lab results through an online VIHA service called MyHealth.). By the way, a really good source of information about reading our lab results can be found here: http://media.myelomacentral.com/wp-content/uploads/UnderstandingYourLabResults.pdf.

Once a month or so I get tested for more myeloma specific indicators in my blood serum. These are paraproteins and free light chains, both kappa and lambda. Our blood has both Free Light Chains and Heavy Chains. These are simply descriptions of the organization of proteins in our blood serum. Without getting into too much technical detail it’s important to note that some myeloma patients are kappa free light chain myeloma patients and some are lambda free light chain myeloma patients. I’m a lambda kind of guy.

So, I went on a new chemo regimen in January. It’s composed of dexamethasone, a glucocorticoid, lenalidomide, a chemo drug (they’re not sure how it works) and Daratumumab, a monoclonal antibody. If your eyes haven’t glassed over yet from all the technical jargon I invite you to have a look at the table below I got from MyHealth. It refers to my Lambda Free Light Chains from June, 2020 to February 26th, 2021. It’s a very informative table. The red numbers highlight times when the lab results indicated that I had lambda free light chains higher than the reference range, which is conveniently given on the right in the table. You can see that from September 30th, 2020 until January 27th, 2021 that the myeloma was getting more active again in my blood, a conclusion supported by the redness of the numbers therein. Not only that, but you can see that the amount of free light chains in my blood was increasing rapidly during that time from 44.2 milligrams per litre of blood on September 30th 2020 to 201 milligrams per litre of blood on January 27, 2021, but in fact had been increasing from June 30, 2020. That was a very worrying trend because the more free light chains in my blood the sicker I get.

Then I started the new course of chemotherapy and the lambda free light chains in my blood went from 201 to 11.7 mg/l a number well within the reference range. That”s why I got so excited when I saw the ‘normal’ 11.7 mg/L on February 26th, just a few days ago. In my discussion with my oncologist in Victoria, he said that we shouldn’t expect to see any positive results for two to three months and here I went from a high of 201 to 11.7 in a month! Now, that is cause for celebration. It means that the Daratumumab is my buddy and is working better than expected. Hallelujah!

____________________________________________________________________________________________________
*https://www.myelomacrowd.org/living-with-abnormal-free-light-chain-ratios/

**reference numbers are a range of numbers within which numbers should fit in a ‘normal’ person. Reference numbers are where the majority of people would fit in terms of their standing on any particular measure. It’s a range because there is understandable variation from patient to patient. For example for Kappa Free Light Chains the reference range is 3.30 – 19.40 mg/L.