At last some good news..

Yet again it has been so long since I last posted that I am having to play catch up.  Time has passed so quickly, the exceptionally mild winter moved as swiftly as the swallows and swifts arrived into an early warm and sometimes very wet Spring, fruit trees laden with pink and white blossom and new green foliage eagerly bursting through the soil. I was in hospital the latter part of March and half way though April last year having my cord blood transplant and more or less missed out on Spring so it has been a real delight to witness it this time. However it has been extremely hard to find the energy, concentration and inclination over the last few months to update my blog. I have tried and done the odd bit at a time but now I’m just going to get an update out there whilst I’m having a steroid day!  It isn’t all I wanted it to be but if I put it off any longer, it may never happen. It is somewhat a technical update about treatment which hopefully you will get through in order to understand the backdrop to my world the last few months.  Life with myeloma and on treatment has been even more of a rollercoaster ride than usual. Coping with the side effects of the treatment, fatigue, chemo brain, depression and infections has taken its toll. Although it has been about 5 months since my last post, time has a different dimension for me with little to distinguish one day to the next, yet although I am doing less, it doesn’t feel like it is passing more slowly. An average day for me might consist of a hospital appointment, going shopping or an hour in the garden or a meet up with a friend or watching TV and that is all I can manage except on steroid days.

Lets start with a (fairly) brief recap…

Late December 2015

I ended the last post on a bit of a cliff hanger as I was waiting for my clinic appointment on 31 December to find out the result of the light chain test from the end of the second cycle. It was very bad news, they had risen sharply to 3600mg/l. The hope that Revlimid might have kickstarted some graft versus host disease and with that some graft versus myeloma effect or that my new cells would be resensitised to treatment were dashed. I was desperate to switch to a different treatment but there wasn’t anything left on the NHS that was available to me apart from Bendamustine, an old chemotherapy drug from the sixties which seems to have had a bit of a renaissance recently for treatment of relapsed myeloma but really is the last resort. Rather than that, the boss suggested I have a third cycle of the same treatment but increase the amount of Dexamethasone (the steroid) to 4omg x 4 days each fortnight over the 28 day cycle, an enormous dose and add Clarithromicin to the treatment regime. Clarithromicin is an antibiotic which has been shown in a recent study to overcome resistance to Revlimid, incidentally a study that I came across and informed my consultant about!  In part the reason for the high dose of Dex was to try and help bring down my creatinine levels as they were elevated which was a sign that my kidney function was not good. The high dose dex might also help to keep a lid on the rising light chains as by now I was starting to feel the effects of active myeloma such as raised calcium levels, anaemia, fatigue and the reduction in kidney function. I seriously thought that I was approaching the end of my myeloma journey and that I might have about 6 to 12 months left. Note the word “left” rather than “live”. The psychotherapist on the Haematology ward whom I had been seeing didn’t try to dissuade me from my view but suggested I try and prioritise what was truely important to me if I did only have that amount of time left. What would I pack in my suitcase for 6 months, what would I leave out? What for 12 months?  I found that analogy helped me put in place some plans for life rather than be waiting to die. I still haven’t packed my suitcase though!

January 2016

I started my third cycle of Revlimid, high dose dex (interestingly sex, always comes up on my predictive spelling instead of dex but I certainly wasn’t prescribed that!) and added daily Clarithromicin. A rather depressing and anxious start to 2016.

I got a high temperature about 10 days later and had to go to A&E, which is standard advice when you are a haematology patient on treatment or recovering from a transplant. After about 10 hours on a trolley in a side room there, I was transferred to a haematology ward and pumped full of IV antibiotics and fluids.  I ended up staying in just under a week as I was still getting temperature spikes and the medical team were waiting for the results of swabs and blood cultures. I was given two units of blood as I was extremely anaemic and I had stage 2 acute kidney disease which used to to be called acute renal failure which is what led to my diagnosis. There is only one more stage! I had a very frank conversation with the boss on the ward round and she agreed with me that as no cause of infection could be identified and in view of my other symptoms it was more likely that it was active myeloma which was causing these problems. I was taken off Revlimid whilst in hospital as having chemo when poorly isn’t a good idea and it didn’t seem to be working anyway.

Lack of sleep, dex withdrawal, stress, anxiety and fear all played on my mind and I did think I was heading to a position where I was too ill to have any more treatment and the light chains would rise rapidly out of control ultimately in my case clogging up my kidneys and causing end stage kidney failure. After a lot of patient advocacy, I was released on parole 5 days later, the condition being I had to attend the day unit for the next few days for IV fluids, antibiotics and top ups of  magnesium, phosphates and potassium. They were long tiring days but better than being stuck in hospital and my kidney function improved.

At my clinic appointment on 18 January I  found out the good news that my light chains had gone down to 1300.  Praise the Dexamethasone! I felt a huge sense of relief and the fear that I was approaching the “end” subsided.  I started a 4th cycle of the same high dose dex regime on 26th January.

I have already described in previous posts, particularly in Dexamethasone the good the bad and the ugly just how badly I am affected by it, more the withdrawal or the crash than the actual days of taking it which just causes me to be a bit hyper and gives me some energy.  It is the depression, irritability with myself and others, low mood, lack of sleep, shakiness in my voice and hands and lack of mobility due to muscle wasting that affect me so much. My physical appearance changes too, weight gain and redistribution of weight to the torso, the red moon face and hamster cheeks, humped neck, bloated stomach and hair thinning that when I see myself in the mirror I hardly recognise myself.

February

Half way through the 4th cycle when I was tested again my light chains were down to 500mg and by the end of the 4th cycle they were 344. Everyone was happy. It helped me cope with the side effects of the treatment, knowing that it was working.

March

In early March I went for a short break to Sicily with my friend and travelling companion, Jet. It was a bit of a mixed bag health wise as I had sickness and diarrhoea for some of the time and the usual fatigue. It was unseasonably cold and wet too at times but it was a change of scene and I really liked the vibrant folk art paintings of a local painter, Fiore, some of whose paintings were in our B&B but we also saw him at work in his studio. I loved the painted plastic table and chairs outside it. What a transformation of boring white plastic outdoor furniture enhanced by the bowl of Sicilian lemons!

On 26 March it was the one year anniversary of my cord blood transplant. There was nothing to celebrate about it apart from the fact of survival which is good of course, given I was given a 20% risk of mortality in the first 12 months. It was more a time to note and grieve the fact that it didn’t have the desired effect of my new immune system attacking the myeloma. I’m still not over the disappointment, but don’t know how to reach closure and let it go. Hopefully more about this in another post.  I didn’t have much time to dwell on this as on 28 March I was back in hospital again for a week with a high temperature, this time with parainfluenza 3 which in immune compromised patients can develop into pneumonia. I was given the usual IV antibiotics and fluids but had to stay in until my temperature was stable and they got results back from swabs and cultures so they could see what to treat any infection with. I hate being in hospital and didn’t feel ill enough to be there which I said to the doctors on more than one occasion but other than discharge myself and risk having to go back in again with a temp spike and lose my room, I didn’t have much choice. I was taken off Revlimid again and as my light chains had gone up to 440 at the end of the 5th cycle that caused me some anxiety.

April

On the weekend after I got out of hospital  I had just about recovered from the paraflu and felt well enough to travel to my parents to  celebrate my Mum’s 80th birthday, then I spent the following weekend in London with a friend taking in an exhibition about Monet and the modern garden and lots of good food. It felt good to be able to do these kind of “normal” things but when I got back I felt poorly and I came down with yet another viral infection with cough and cold symptoms, this time my old foe Adenovirus. I am only just getting over this nearly 2 months later and it has really wiped me out.  On 21 April I started a 7th cycle of Revlimid, Dex and Clarithromicin. Light chains were 98 at the end of the sixth cycle. That was a really spectactular drop especially as that cycle was messed up as I wasn’t on treatment for a week and a half.  I was delighted and relieved but slightly anxious that it could be a lab error. Also the boss pointed out recently that I did take a double dose of dexamethasone during that cycle.

May

Despite the fatigue and the virus, May has been a quite a busy month so far. In early May, I ventured out in the evening, a rare event, to a couple of dance performances. As a birthday present from my parents, I tried out my flying skills on a flight simulator which was surprisingly realistic and fun. I landed in Hong Kong and St Maarten in the Caribbean fairly successfully without taking off too many roofs!. Then over my birthday I celebrated with friends and family with lots of meals out and cake. I also did a lovely 5 mile walk in Dovedale in the Peak District. It was all quite exhausting especially as I was steroid crashing but I’m glad I did it. I really didn’t think when I was first diagnosed at 49 in 2010 that I would make it to 55. At that time there was a 40% chance of survival for 5 years.

I started an 8th cycle of treatment on 19 May. The dex dose has been reduced from 40 to 30mg for the first 4 days of the cycle to see how that goes. The boss thought my fatigue was due to the cumulative effects of the treatment and the viral infections.  I also found out the results from the 7th cycle, my light chains were up to 160 from 98. Although up a bit, I was relieved that the previous months result wasn’t likely to be a lab error as they were not far apart.

Ok that is the update done at last! I included some of the things I have managed to do as a reminder to myself that there have been some good times and productive enjoyable days, but mostly I feel like life has passing me by as the last couple of months have been really tough going, both emotionally and physically. There have been so many arrangements I have had to cancel or events that I wasn’t able to go too because I’ve been either been too tired, unwell, or just not the right mind to attend or all three. Then I berate myself for not going. I have learnt that fatigue is not about whether I sleep well or not, which I generally don’t, verging on insomnia at the moment, but like an insidious relentless brain fog. On steroid days I make all sorts of plans, have more energy and feel quite good. But in the crash period that follows all those plans go out of the window and I just try to get through the day. It means that going to weekly classes or getting involved in anything on a regular basis is really difficult to manage as I never know how I am going to be from one day to the next. My quality of life is fairly poor at the moment and that may not change as I will be on treatment for the rest of my life now. When the current treatment combo stops working as my myeloma develops resistance to it, I will switch to something else. There will be no periods of drug free remission, no more transplants, another donor transplant would be too toxic and unheard of. So my challenge remains as always to live in the moment and live as well as possible, accept my limitations, get the balance right and not give myself a hard time if I don’t always achieve it. As I like to think of myself as a pretty good card player, I find this quote very apt!

“Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well.”

― Robert Louis Stevenson

 

 

 

The Myeloma Trilogy

My blog updates recently have been about these strange and difficult times I am going through with my relapse and whilst this update doesn’t bring any good news I wanted to take a more light hearted approach to my current situation with more than a passing nod to my passion for Nordic Noir which started for me with the Millennium Trilogy by the late Stieg Larsson with its complex and compelling central character, Lisbeth Salander.

So here is my version

Part 1

The Girl with the High Kappa Light Chains (aka The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo)

Below is a representation of a light and heavy chain component of a protein so if ever I was to have a tattoo I suppose I could have this motif repeated in a chain round my muscular biceps (not!) but I think I would prefer a dragon tattoo!

                                 

My kappa light chains have risen again to 2725 from 1975 mg/litre or something like that. I felt upset and disappointed that the course of dexamethasone I had been given (see my post Trials and Tribulations)  to try and hold the myeloma at bay hadn’t appeared to have had any effect (or maybe it stopped them being higher who knows?).  This time though I am finding it hard to shrug the high number off so easily as I am now displaying symptoms of active myeloma which are causing me not to feel so well for the first time since relapse was confirmed.

One feature of my rising kappa light chains over the last few months (which doesn’t make me unwell) has been the reappearance of frothy urine which is foamy and bubbly in appearance, like a lager top or bubble bath. For those that are curious this is what it looks like in the toilet bowl! I am back to drinking 3 litres of fluids a day to keep my kidneys being flushed out.

I have written in detail about it in a previous post, Frothy Urine. I noticed it when I was first diagnosed and had acute renal failure but as my light chains went down with treatment and eventually into normal range it tailed off and became intermittent and at the point when I wrote about it, it was because of residual kidney damage meaning my kidneys leaked proteins occasionally. This surprisingly has turned out to be my most googled tag line after myeloma so clearly a lot of people have anxieties about protineuria and although it can be a sign of something serious it isn’t necessarily so. At the moment it is being caused by my high kappa light chains as excess light chain proteins are being excreted into my urine through my kidneys. The concern is that my kidneys could become clogged up with those proteins as they did last time and cause casts to form which prevent the kidneys from functioning. I am now being monitored for my kidney function weekly and at the last test my kidney function was slightly abnormal but nothing to worry about. Another sign that my myeloma is becoming active though

Part 2

The Girl Who Displayed High Fever (aka The Girl Who Played with Fire)

Since I last wrote about my temperature spikes which resulted in the dreadful 2 day stay in hospital,  A Room with a View, I  have had quite a lot more although I managed to get away with attending the Haematology day unit 2 times instead of being admitted. I was observed, blood tests and cultures taken and sent home with no cause of infection established. About two weeks ago I started getting a temperature of 38 degrees centigrade daily and was feeling shivery and unwell. I was given a course of oral antibiotics but these had no effect and the only thing that helped was taking paracetamol but of course this masks infection and only lowers the temperature temporarily. This period caused me much anxiety and resentment, but being reassured that there was no infection, later became more of a debilitating nuisance requiring a lot of resting and keeping warm or cool depending on my body temperature. The doctors are putting it down to myeloma related fevers. But I  camped at a music and arts festival a couple of weeks ago straight after escaping the day unit, had my fevers, took paracetamol and had a good time in the circumstances. The friend I was meeting up with there checked out where the nearest A&E was and promised to take me there if I needed to go. I didn’t. I have played tennis a couple of times too which I really enjoyed.

On the fire theme, my red blood cell count is below the usual range for females, not much but enough to make me slightly anaemic which explains my increasing fatigue and low energy of late feeling short of breath and wondering how I will ever be able to do any triathlon training, let alone the triathlon in 3 weeks time (an update on the triathlon is coming very soon). Again this is a common symptom of myeloma, (and also a side effect of the chemotherapy that is used to treat myeloma).  I mentioned feeling resentment before and what I resent is that I am now experiencing symptoms of myeloma which are starting to impact upon my health without actually being to take any benefit from having any chemotherapy to treat them. The only positive to the misery of being on toxic chemotherapy is the expectation that it is reducing the disease burden. Yet apart from the Dexamethasone I am still waiting to start treatment so nothing is happening except I am not so well right now when I could be not so well on chemotherapy but at least getting the benefit! I always wanted to be fit and well when I started treatment but it seems that the balancing act has tipped too far in favour of waiting for the trial to open rather than starting treatment off trial.

Part 3

The Girl Who Kicked Ass on Dex (aka The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest)

Yes I have once again been given a short course of Dexamethasone, this time more to keep my kidney function stable which I hope works more successfully than the last course did for keeping my myeloma at bay. When I took the first 20mg on Saturday mornng I felt my fatigue go and became filled with a surge of energy which was just what I needed as I had a 101 things to do that weekend that I hadn’t had the energy to do in the week. It seems to have stopped the fevers too which is great. What fabulous stuff , I know I’ll crash when I stop taking them but it’s worth it for now. What I really need is to start treatment and I was fully expecting to when I went to my clinic appointment last Friday to start something off trial if the trial wasn’t open but my consultant it seems had other ideas. He told me that Onyx trial still hasn’t opened at my hospital but it is getting closer to being ready as they had the initiation meeting the day before and at least he had a pack in his hand with the trial details. It could be open next Friday with me having a bone marrow biopsy and some other tests required for the trial and then starting treatment just over a week later as the dexamethasone needs to be clear of my system for 14 days before I can start the treatment. He made a cursory offer of treatment off trial there and then but I had 5 minutes left before I had to leave to have a skeletal xray survey so it seemed pointless to do that if the trial is really that near to starting. So can I hold on? Will it be worth it, I hope so?

In my dexy state, I have this fantasy that I could send Lisbeth Salander on a mission to get the Onyx Trial to the MRI. There are quite a few Onyx trial centres running in France so she could set off on her motorbike from Stockholm in her black leathers looking gorgeous and ride south to France. She could fake some ID to get into the  hospital (I visualise this as being somewhere in Paris) break into their IT centre, hack into the Onyx trial data, copy it and then hack into the Central Manchester Healthcare Trust database and copy everything over creating me as their first patient. She would design the randomisation process so that I could only get Carfilzomib, the newer drug. So when I go to my appointment (perhaps with her?) this Friday, it is miraculously open, I sign up, get randomised to Carfilzomib! The drug is delivered and off I go!

Here is Lisbeth Salander in action on her motorbike and me on my motorbike during my rebellious student days. I don’t look quite as cool and mean as Lisbeth Salander but hey I look quite cool. I seem to remember I liked posing on it more than I did riding it!

                                             

Once more I must be a patient patient and hope that I can get started on treatment soon. In part because I have not been feeling quite so good recently,  I am ready and resigned to leaving the normal world behind me for a while and entering the myeloma world I talked about in my last post (trials and tribulations).  Letting the chemotherapy do its work and hope that it does and that I can manage the side effects.

Skal to that as they say in Swedish

ps oh no that couldn’t possibly be, in that glass she is holding could it???

Trials and Tribulations

Life is rather strange at the moment. I have relapsed but I am not on any treatment. I am quite well physically yet my kappa light chains were approaching 2000mg/litre at the last test on 21 June.  Another sharp rise then by about 850mg, I wish I was IT adequate so I could put graphs on my blog posts. Normal is up to 19mg per litre. However much as I might like to be normal, I am not!  I am adjusting to these figures each time and they now really mean very little.  I found myself saying to a friend who also has myeloma ” they’re only 2000″!! I remember when I first found out I was relapsing I was devastated that they had risen over 100 but at that point I was dealing with the trauma of relapse. Now I have got used to the fact that I have relapsed, that the light chains are not going to go back down of their own accord and I need to start treatment at some point probably quite soon.

I have the same physical well being as I did when I was properly in remission and my light chains were in normal range.  I am told that my relapse is biochemical rather than clinical as I have normal range blood results and kidney function and am showing no signs of bone damage ie pain! Therefore the only way it is detected is by the free light chain test of my blood serum. The last few weeks since my stay in hospital with a high temperature (see my last post, A Room with a View )  I have  seen my own consultant twice and went to St James Hospital in Leeds for a second opinion from Professor Gordon Cook which was extremely helpful. The purpose of the second opinion was to discuss treatment strategies, both immediate and long term.  We have discussed trials. One excellent trial c0-ordinated by Myeloma UK has been ruled out (the MUK5 trial) as my exit strategy isn’t compatible with the trial objectives. However another very similar trial aptly called the Endeavor Trial looks suitable for me as it compares a new drug which is not available off trial (Carfilzomib) against an older version of a similar drug (Bortezomib). There is a 50/50 chance of getting the new drug but it is not open at the Manchester Royal Infirmary yet. I keep being told shortly or two to three weeks but that has turned into a few months now as the trial sponsors seem to be prevaricating. Which is why I am waiting and waiting and waiting.

To hold the myeloma at bay, I was given a 4 day course of high dose dexamethasone  a couple of weeks ago ( a steroid commonly used as part of treatment of myeloma). I experienced a very bad reaction to dexamethasone whilst on treatment before. During the  days of the cycle I took it  I suffered from insomnia, carb/junk food cravings and shakiness.  The plus side is energy surges. Long term use resulted in  blurred vision, muscle wasting, heavy aching legs and tinnitus. During the intervals I wasn’t taking it I suffered withdrawal symptoms such as irritability, severe low mood and lack of concentration. I thought that as the recent dose was just a one off 4 day course,  I wouldn’t get these effects but guess what I did!  Not the long term ones but the short term ones. The good part of it was having energy for a works night out and drinking rather too many mojitos, then going to a friend’s house gathering that lovely first weekend of the start of summer in the Cotswolds and being able to do some rather energetic disco dancing for quite a long time! No photos of that I am afraid.

The downside was that for 2 to 3 days after taking the course I felt extremely low and irritable to the point where I had decided that I wasn’t going to take any treatment for my relapse if it was going to make me feel like this and I would rather let my disease take its course! I can find that laughable now but I really did feel like that at the time. It doesn’t bode well for the commencement of the suggested 6 to 8 cycles of treatment which will include dexamethasone and one of the drugs mentioned above. Will I be able to tolerate it both mentally and physically?

But whilst I am waiting to start treatment either on a trial or off trial, I feel like I inhabit two alternate worlds at the moment

The Normal World

Where myeloma is not mentioned. Work is extremely demanding right now as I am busy dealing with another kind of fast approaching trial, the highest value  claim and most interesting case I have ever handled. I want to see it through to conclusion.  I am making arrangements for conferences, meetings and court hearings to take place over the next few weeks without knowing whether I’ll be able to attend them. I am continuing with all my other usual activities including training for the Salford Triathlon on the 18th August which involves 6 training sessions a week. More about the triathlon in a post to follow soon but if you want to sponsor me or find out more just click on the just giving link on my blog.  Then there is of course much to enjoy about this glorious spell of  Mediterranean  style weather we are experiencing in the UK at the moment.

The Myeloma World

In this world I am a relapsed cancer patient not yet on treatment, being clinically managed by Haematologists, with very little control over what happens. Spending a lot of time thinking and talking about my chromosome abnormalities, clinical trials, drugs, treatment combinations, stem cell transplants, kidney function, kappa light chains, treatment strategies and having endless blood tests. This world consists of mostly waiting for results and at the moment a trial to open and uncertainty. Different friends came with me to my last two appointments and both were amazed by the level of knowledge I had about myeloma and the treatment of it. When I start treatment this will mostly become my world again.

Which World?

Well I don’t have much choice. I know I have to start treatment and once I start it I will have a routine and some say feel better mentally for it.  The anxiety caused by waiting and worrying that I am going to get kidney failure, bone damage or a serious infection would be replaced by the anxiety  that I will no doubt feel about coping the side effects of the treatment and whether it will work but I am already feeling anxious about that now so I suppose starting treatment removes one layer of anxiety!.

On the other hand, I oscillate between wanting to get treatment underway and wanting to delay it further whilst I am feeling so well so I could enjoy the rest of the summer and do the triathlon and perhaps even approach the 2 year anniversary of my stem cell transplant on 1st September free of treatment? I guess the decision is out of my hands. To use my currently much overused phrase “I’ll keep you posted”

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.”
―     Gilda Radner

A Room With A View

“Though life is very glorious, it is difficult.”
―     E.M. Forster,     A Room with a View / Howards End

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another of my favourite books by one of my favourite authors.

The title being apt because I have had my own room with a view of sorts recently.  I took an unplanned short break for a couple of nights in the Manchester Royal Infirmary, not quite the same as Italy!  During this recent glorious spell of hot dry weather I had been feeling a little cold and shivery and was wearing warm winter clothing in the office with the window closed, very unlike me. When I came back from work on Wednesday I was exhausted and was intending to take some paracetamol and lie down but something made me take my temperature with the old velcade thermometer I had been given when I first started chemotherapy and it was 39.1, quite high then. The advice when I was on chemotherapy and after my transplant was to contact the haematology department if your temperature was over 37.5 but did that apply when not on treatment?

I wasn’t sure so I thought I would ring the out of hours haematology line at my hospital. I explained I had relapsing myeloma and my temperature was 39.1 and the person I spoke to advised me that I should go to A&E as I may need antibiotics. I anticipated that they would say that, from past experiences, having attended several times whilst on treatment.

I rang a friend who kindly gave me a lift. I wondered about packing an overnight bag but decided that I would probably be home later and it wasn’t necessary. I duly arrived and showed my haematology alert card which means that I shouldn’t be left in the main waiting area too long and within a short space of time I saw the triage nurse. My temperature had dropped to 37.9 by then and I was beginning to wonder whether I should just go home!

I was then taken to a side room in the amber area. About 3 hours later I saw a doctor who said he didn’t want to give me antibiotics yet but wanted to admit me for observation as a high temperature and fever was a sign of infection. That was about 9pm and I was left there until about 3.30am with a break for a chest xray, after which I was eventually moved to a bay on the acute medical unit. It was a truly awful experience trying to sleep on a trolley with bright lights and continual noise! When they took my temperature again at 4am it had gone back up to 38.4.

From there I was later moved again to a haematology ward after I saw my haematology consultant who said he wanted to keep me in another night for observation and give me some intravenous antibiotics.  It was a different ward to where I had my stem cell transplant but a similar set up with haematology nurses who reassuringly knew what they were doing and with what they were dealing. I was sharing a large room with another patient undergoing a stem cell transplant who was very poorly and the room had ceiling to floor windows with a view of the a car park with some grassy areas beyond it and a modern section of the hospital on the far side of the road. Certainly one of the best views to be had from a hospital bed in the MRI!

Well before I got the intravenous antibiotics, my temperature had stabilised and I felt ok but exhausted through lack of sleep for more than 24 hours. My consultant told me I couldn’t possibly start treatment with an infection in my body as it could end up being much much worse and I expressed my frustration that treatment had been delayed to the point where I had got an infection and now couldn’t start treatment. He tried to explain in a rather abrasive manner that it wasn’t vital that I started treatment straight away as my kidney function was fine and my blood counts were normal but I didn’t really take it in and just felt that my myeloma would spiral out of control untreated. After he had gone I am afraid that I just broke down and cried and cried and cried!  I felt alone and as out of control as I perceived my myeloma to be.

I calmed down a little later on in part due to a chance encounter with my former lovely consultant in the coffee bar who reassured me with far more empathy than my consultant showed, that it would be ok to delay treatment and it wouldn’t affect the outcome although I didn’t ask her what damage if any, was being caused by my rising kappa light chains now at 1032 mg/litre.

So with all the endless waiting around for tests, doctors, nurses and medication over the next 24 hours and in the absence of a working TV or a decent mobile signal, wifi or even a book I had no distractions in my room with a view.

I watched from the chair by the window, people sitting on the grass basking in lovely sunshine, smiling, drinking, eating, being happy and going about their business, in contrast to my sterile prison like environment. I gloomily realised a view of my future, of admissions to hospital, treatments, clinic appointments, transplants, a life over which I had no control but which was shaped and determined by medics, numbers and endless blood tests. This would be the life ahead for me and I would never experience that careless abandonment of those people outside sitting on the grass. It would be a life that set me apart from my friends and peers whom I am already conscious of boring with the latest tales of my relapse and kappa light chain figures. It can only get worse in the future and I don’t want to burden my friends with that but neither can I pretend to be unaffected by it. I don’t want talk about it but I do want to talk about it. I am in danger of becoming alienated from the world my friends and peers inhabit, of planning for their future retirement, booking holidays, downsizing, celebrating their 60th birthdays and making assumptions about their futures which I cant make.

And I know my future will be about more than that and there will be good times ahead but right now I am feeling a little bleak and don’t want to or cant feel positive or “keep my chin up”. I try to live from day to day but my two days away didn’t help to keep my spirits up.

“I never think of the future – it comes soon enough.”
―     Albert Einstein

The test that was right that was wrong that was right

“Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final”
―     Rainer Maria Rilke

When I got back from Paris a week last Friday on the Eurostar trip with my parents to see Monet’s garden, amongst my post was an odd letter from the Haematology department saying my appointment with the consultant had been cancelled and that an appointment had been arranged for Friday 17th May instead at 12pm. By the time I got the letter it was too late to ring them to say I had only just got back so it had to wait until Monday. I didn’t really worry about it but rang on Monday and spoke to the appointment secretary and explained that I had been away and unable to attend. I asked why it had been brought forward and was told something like the doctor was trying to clear down his list for 31 May when my appointment had been scheduled for.  It was rearranged for 24 May.

I duly attended, expecting to discuss the erroneous test result (see my last posts, falling off the plateau  and back on the plateau ) and perhaps to have another discussion about what treatment I might have when I do relapse bearing in mind that my kappa light chains were only 117 mg/litre, there was no immediate concerns.  I had the last appointment and when I arrived clinic was extremely busy but as I was having Zometa  (a bone strengthening treatment) as well, I went to the day unit for my bloods to be taken and my kidney function tested as usual. I had Zometa at about 3pm and still hadn’t seen my consultant but as I was leaving the day unit I bumped into him and the haematology specialist nurse as they were coming to find me. Seeing the nurse there as well made me feel slightly anxious as she doesn’t normally sit in on my appointments. We went into his consulting room and he then told me that unfortunately the first test showing the massive rise in my light chains to 617 mg/litre was in fact correct and it was the retest that was wrong. I was completely stunned. He said that both tests had been retested several times and that it was confirmed. The lab were unable to give any explanation as to how they got the retest result so wrong.

My consultant said on that basis I was now relapsing and we needed to sort out a treatment plan pretty quickly. We discussed different options but my head was in a complete spin and I couldn’t really concentrate on what he was saying. I am to ring up in a few days time to find out the result of the light chain test taken on Friday and if my kappa light chains are over 1000, I have to make an urgent appointment to see my consultant and have my kidney function tested which is a big concern and possibly start treatment straight away. If they are less than 1000 I will see him on 14 June by which time a trial may be available which might be a good option for me. So unless by some bizarre chance my light chain test this time shows a massive reduction in my light chains, I will be starting treatment very soon and all my plans of doing the triathlon in August and a couple of holidays in September will be out of the window.

After the appointment, I was in shock and disbelief.  It felt a little surreal. I debated whether to go to a friend’s 60th birthday meal that evening but I did and it was fine but that night I couldn’t sleep and the following morning I was low and tearful and was thinking of putting off my friends visit to me for the weekend that thinking that my mood would be so low I wouldn’t want to see them.  I went to my outdoor fitness session in the local park hoping that it would raise my serotonin levels but it didn’t really have that effect, instead I was worrying about whether too much exercise would be stressing my body!

My friends arrived, it was a lovely day, I told them the bad news and by the afternoon my mood had completely lifted and I was dancing to salsa music round the kitchen and the garden whilst making dinner. I am still feeling okay, after all I am in no worse position than I was when I found out that my light chains had risen to 617 on 19 April. I adjusted to that after the initial shock and disappointment, then had the elation of finding out that test was supposedly wrong, had cocktails on my birthday with friends, went to London and then Paris in a celebratory mood ( I probably wouldn’t have gone if I had known my light chains were over 600). Monet’s garden was truly beautiful (aside from the drama of my mother falling over and breaking her wrist) and Paris was well Paris, the city of light!

It is a cliché, but life at the moment is truly like being on a roller coaster!

In fact dealing with the emotional effects of having myeloma is far more challenging than the physical effects at least for me so far. It has truly been a mind blowing experience. How I can go from feeling so desperately low and alone on Saturday morning to happy and elated by late afternoon is just as strange as the recent sequence of test results.

The Nightmare Before Christmas

I’m not keen on this time of year, approaching Christmas, things seem to have a habit of going wrong for me, especially 2 years ago.

On 14 December 2010 at around 11.30pm I was admitted via A&E to the renal ward of Manchester Royal Infirmary with acute kidney failure. I had not been well for a week or too, and had to cancel flights booked to India departing on December 15th on my GP’s advice due to a urine infection. I was suffering with nausea, breathlessness, fatigue and general weakness but went into work in the morning as usual. I sat at my desk but was unable to concentrate on anything, my secretary noticed, had a word with the office manager and I was sent home. When I got home I went to bed, it was a cold winter’s day, it might have been snowing. I was sleeping when my doctor rang late in the afternoon to tell me that my recent blood tests showed that my kidney function had deteriotated to 10 to 15% of what it should be in the last 7 days between blood tests and that I should go to A&E straightaway. I asked him would I be there long, ridiculous question really!! He said I should pack a bag.

My partner at the time helped me pack a bag and both of us in shock, we set off first to the GP surgery to pick up a letter with the blood tests and my notes. Then to the hospital about 3 miles away. I remember clearly that it was snowing, the roads were covered in snow and the driving conditions, slow and difficult. That was the wintry beginning of my journey into unknown territory.

I was eventually admitted and then as those of you will know from reading this blog was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma on I think 23 December. I was discharged on Christmas Eve, relieved to be out but hardly in the mood for celebrating. Even so there were some poignant and happy moments.

That was the start of my new life. There was before and there was after and even though my life now in many respects has the outward appearance of my life before it just isnt. I am not saying it is worse, it is different and sometimes better. I also need to throw into the mix that shortly after diagnosis I split up with my partner of nearly 20 years standing so the before and after is very much interwoven with that traumatic event. In my mind that has been emotionally tougher than the cancer diagnosis to deal with. The loneliness of my journey has been acute at times and though I never really needed a “carer” for any physical needs, I have really missed and still do, having someone to share my journey with, the good and the bad.

The next few months of treatment combined with my relationship ending were the toughest times I have ever been through but get through it I did.

“At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can”

Frida Kahlo

So last year at this time, nothing dramatic went wrong and I was recovering from my stem cell transplant. I had a bone marrow biopsy in early December and I was told that it was less than 5% abnormal plasma cells so that was good news, I was officially in remission! However the news was tempered with the not so good news that I had chromosomal abnormalities that could mean a poorer outcome and shorter remission so a donor transplant was being recommended within 6 months. Having agonised over whether to have a second donor transplant and deciding to have one, I was told that a donor couldnt be found when the search was initiated.

For more on the donor transplant read my post “clinic appointment on Friday 13th”

https://wendyduffield.wordpress.com/2012/04/06/clinic-appoint…on-friday-13th/

And this year, what could go wrong, well lots could go wrong, I’ve been having some strange hip pain which I thought could be bone pain caused by myeloma coming back but it turned out not to be much to my relief.

However there is just one tiny little thing …………..!

I had booked a holiday to India, going in March 2013, similar to the one that I had to cancel 2 years ago so I was looking forward to it but yesterday I was contacted by the tour company to say that as I was the only one on it, it had been cancelled. Strange coincidence but completely different circumstances and as I cant cancel the flights I will just look for another holiday so its not a big deal.

So no nightmares before Christmas this year and nothing hanging over me so I intend to enjoy the time with my family, two years on from diagnosis. Another milestone on my journey. It is something of a dichotomy as I am impatient to reach the milestones because they mark more and more time in remission but on the other hand I want the time to go slowly so that I can appreciate it more! I need to have in mind that..

“Life isn’t a matter of milestones, but of moments.”

― Rose Kennedy

Seasons Greetings to all

 

 

Frothy Urine

In the weeks before my diagnosis in December 2010, I noticed that my urine was foamy and frothy.  I found out that this is a sign of proteinuria. There was much worse to come.

Proteinuria (/proʊtiːˈnʊəriə/ or /proʊtiːˈnjʊəriə/; from protein and urine) means the presence of an excess of serum proteins in the urine. The excess protein in the urine often causes the urine to become foamy. Proteinuria may be a sign of renal (kidney) damage. Since serum proteins are readily reabsorbed from urine, the presence of excess protein indicates either an insufficiency of absorption or impaired filtration.

The nurse at my GP practice told me there was protein in my urine when she did the dipstick test. I didnt really know what that meant and didnt worry about it at the time. The dipstick test couldnt confirm what type of protein or how much.

It turned out for me to be not only a sign of renal damage but also of the presence of an abnormal protein known as Bence Jones protein, named after the scientist that discovered it.

A Bence Jones protein is a monoclonal globulin protein or immunoglobulin light chain found in the blood or urine, with a molecular weight of 22-24 kDa. Detection of Bence Jones protein may be suggestive of multiple myeloma or Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia.

Bence Jones proteins are particularly diagnostic of multiple myeloma in the context of end-organ manifestations such as renal failure, lytic (or “punched out”) bone lesions, anemia, or large numbers of plasma cells in the bone marrow of patients. Bence Jones proteins are present in 2/3 of multiple myeloma cases.

The proteins are immunoglobulin light chains (paraproteins) and are produced by neoplastic plasma cells. They can be kappa (most of the time like me) or lambda. The light chains can be immunoglobulin fragments or single homogeneous immunoglobulins. They are found in urine due to the kidneys’ decreased filtration capabilities due to renal failure, sometimes induced by hypercalcemia from the calcium released as the bones are destroyed or from the light chains themselves.

The Bence Jones protein was described by the English physician Henry Bence Jones in 1847 and published in 1848

 This is what it looks like!

When I was admitted to hospital with acute kidney failure,  I had to do all my urine in bed pans so that it could be tested over a 24 hour period, I wasnt told why at the time but now I know they were testing for Bence Jones protein which can only be determined by 24 hour collection.

Over the next couple of months as my kidney function returned to normal having been 10 to 15% of what it should have been at the time of admission and I started treatment for myeloma the frothy urine seemed to come and go. It wasnt every time like before.

My  haematology consultant didnt seem to think it was anything to worrry about but couldnt really provide me with an explanation of why this was happening so she referred me back to the renal unit. I should have had a follow up appointment with them anyhow after I was discharged from hospital. The first time I had an outpatient appointment in December 2011 typically I wasnt having any frothy urine and no protein was found but neither was any real explanation given to me by the young (aren’t they all!) junior doctor. I had a further appointment on 26 June when I saw a lovely more senior renal consultant who took the time to explain to me why I was getting intermittent frothy urine although again no objective evidence could be established.

She told me that when I had acute kidney failure my kidneys were probably permanently damaged

I had intrinsic damage to the renal tubules caused by acute tubular necrosis (ATN), I dont remember what I was told at the time but “renal biopsy showed ATN and on re review a few casts” is on my discharge form. How this works in myeloma is that the tubules are increasingly damaged by the large protein load and large obstructing casts frequently form within the tubules. The combination of interstitial fibrosis and hyaline casts surrounded by epithelial cells or multinucleate giant cells constitutes myeloma kidney.

The myeloma casts are pale pink, pretty isnt it!

The tubules of the kidney can also be damaged simply due to  the toxic effects of these filtered proteins.

So with treatment of prednislone which is a steroid and intravenous fluids my kidney function recovered and then with my treatment for myeloma, the high level of free light chains started reducing and luckily I regained normal kidney function fairly quickly and importantly I have maintained it. I was probably hours away from needing dialysis when I was admitted and I know of people with myeloma in remission who still need dialysis due to the damage caused.

So it seems that as my kidney tubules are permanently damaged and I have a few casts, a bit like scar tissue I guess, which mean from time to time I will leak protein into my urine and as long as the myeloma is under control and the protein levels are not too high then it isnt a problem. Strangely enough I now rarely see it in my toilet at home but do in the ones at work.  It is one of the reasons why I still try and drink 3 litres of water  each day to keep flushing out my kidneys. I was told to drink this amount at the start of treatment to flush out toxins and there is differing views on whether I should still be doing this but at my last clinic appointment my consultant said I didnt have to as during remission I should try and live as normal a life as possible which shouldnt involve going to pee all the time! He suggested 2 litres of water would be fine and so now I am being a little more relaxed about it.

However seeing frothy urine is always a reminder of my condition and the fragility of my situation.

I am however hugely appreciative of just how normal my life is right now 11 months post transplant, apart from the frequent infections I have no aches and pains, no physical limitations, no fatigue (no more than anyone else that is!), just frothy urine and curly hair!

From the Run to the Runs

 

Nearly three weeks after the elation of running the 10k and about a week after I got back from a holiday in Italy,  I got a very bad episode of sickness and diarrhoea. Oh the highs and the lows.

No one I had been with or eaten with had got it so it was something I picked up all by myself.  Sunday night and Monday day  were the worst and I had to cancel my monthly bone strengthener treatment (Zometa) at the Haematology Day Unit as I wasn’t well enough to go in and also you are not supposed to attend if you have had sickness or diarrhoea within the last 24 hours.  By Tuesday, I was getting a cold as well. I rang my GP and he suggested I take antibiotics but as it was getting to closing time it would be too late to issue a prescription. I remembered I had an emergency supply at home so he told me to take them.  I started to feel better over that evening and the next day the trend continued so I went in for my Zometa on Wednesday morning. I had wanted to go because before Zometa is administered a blood test is taken to check kidney function. I knew I was being paranoid but some of the symptoms I was feeling with the infection were similar to those I had when I went into acute kidney failure which were shortness of breath, tiredness, lack of appetite so I was relieved that my glomular filtration rate was over 90.  Relief but I am annoyed with myself for the unnecessary anxiety I felt.

It also took me back to almost the exact same time a year ago when I was admitted to hospital for 4 days with chronic diarrhoea, the cause of which was unknown. It started when I was on a short break in the Algarve. I thought it would get better when I got back but it didn’t, it got worse and so I rang the doctor on the haematology ward and she said that I should probably go to A&E. It was Saturday night and I didn’t want to go and sit for hours in A&E  so she agreed I should go first thing on Sunday morning if it wasn’t improving.

I drove myself there on Sunday morning expecting to be back in a few hours as I had planned to go with friends to the Chorlton Open Gardens Day (why I thought I was going to be able to attend that is beyond me) but I ended up being admitted, put on a drip and blood and stool samples taken.

Because of my infection and risk of infection due to just completing my last round of chemotherapy I was put in an isolation room on the Medical Assessment Unit which is a pretty dismal ward where people are put because there is nowhere else for them to go and they cant stay in A&E. I had to call some friends to bring some pyjamas in for me and some other stuff and drive my car to another car park.  The room was hot, small, stuffy and noisy.

I then got moved to a room on the acute medical ward and spent another couple of days there. it had a pay TV so at least I could watch Wimbledon. They weren’t giving me any antibiotics to treat it until they had established the cause. It was at the time of the outbursts of ecoli in Europe which was eventually linked to a bean sprout producer in Germany I think so the medics were concerned that it could have been ecoli but then ruled it out as there were no reported outbreaks in Portugal and tests were negative.

The only good thing about being in hospital is that I bumped into my haematology consultant whilst I was having a walkabout and she told me that there was good news about the results of my bone marrow biopsy which I had done the week before.  There needed to be less than 10% abnormal cells before I could proceed to the stem cell transplant stage of my treatment and when I saw her in clinic on Friday she confirmed it was less than 5%.  So I was discharged on 22 June with some phosphate supplements as my phosphates were low and then gradually got better but running to the toilet 14/15 times a day is not a pleasant experience! Below is an extract from my discharge sheet.

So with having a compromised immune system I was worried that I was going to end up in hospital again but this time my body fought it and I recovered within 48 hours and also was able to attend the Chorlton Open Gardens this year which was on Sunday 24th June. About 25 gardens in Chorlton were open to the public in aid of Freedom against Torture Charity and I managed to get round 15 of them, all of which were lovely, some of which were stunning and inspiring. Here is a photo of a pond I particularly liked.

So all good again.  I think I was particularly anxious this time because of the uncanny timing with the episode last year, the symptoms of fatigue and shortness of breath which were part and parcel of my infection which I was worried was to do with my kidneys and because over the last two months or so 4 people of around my age with myeloma that I know of have died because of serious infections. When I hear about this I feel extremely sad for them and their families, scared and down too because it is a reminder of what may happen to me. Not likely whilst in remission but I DONT KNOW HOW LONG THAT IS GOING TO LAST! I have a clinic appointment next Friday when I should find out my latest free light chain results, wish I could stop feeling anxious.

Just read a very good quote from Daily Encouragement by Daisaku Ikeda which a facebook friend posted.

The important thing is to advance brightly and strive to be victorious at each moment, right where we are; to begin something here and now instead of fretting and worrying over what will happen. This is the starting point for transforming our lives.

This was such a timely post for me, thanks RF!