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

 

 

 

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The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner

I am obviously not a long distance runner, not even a short distance runner at the moment but the solitary nature of running is used as a metaphor in this excellent short story as the main character turns to long distance running as a way of escaping both emotionally and physically from his desperate situation.

Taking part in a triathlon this year and doing the 10k last year has become something similar to me, a way of escaping the world of myeloma both mentally and physically. It signifies that I can do normal things (though some would say that it is mad not normal) and reach a level of fitness which has no place in the world of myeloma. I truly appreciate having been able to be fit and active since my stem cell transplant if not fitter than before diagnosis without bone pain or in fact any pain that some of my fellow myeloma suffers have as a legacy of myeloma even when in remission.  As for the loneliness, living with myeloma can be lonely and scary. I appreciate the acknowledgement of this by a long distance friend who doesn’t have myeloma in a comment made by Prue about my last post, the Myeloma Trilogy  “I reckon it must be quite a lonely place at times…so this is a hello!!!

However I am pleased to say that I won’t be on my own doing the Salford Triathlon next Sunday. My individual place has been substituted for a team place and I am grateful to two friends for doing the swim section and the run section at the end. I still intend to do the middle 20k bike section but have someone on standby if I cant.  I have had to accept that I am not in a position health wise to do all of it and stopped the intensive training a good few weeks ago, finding myself breathless and exhausted. Anyone that knows me will know that I hate to admit defeat and don’t like giving up but now I have accepted it I am pleased and excited to be doing it as part of a team and hugely relieved that the pressure (all of which was self inflicted) is off.  The photos below were taken at a open water swim in a lake in Cheshire on a lovely sunny day and yes that is me gliding through the water with a Myeloma UK swim cap on! Just to prove I had been doing the training!

So neither lonely nor a runner but I will be taking part in the Salford Triathlon on Sunday 18th August and I hope you will support me. You should be able to click on the Just Giving Link on my blog to take you to our  Just Giving Page.  Needless to say I am raising money for Myeloma UK.

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

Patient Experience Talk

I was asked by Myeloma UK to give a talk from a patient perspective at the Manchester Myeloma UK info day for patients and their families on September 22nd. I agreed as it would mean a free place and thought it would be easy enough however as time went on and the day got nearer I started feeling a little nervous and as power point was mentioned ( a way of presenting slides) I learnt how to use it and spent ages selecting slides to try and illustrate my feelings. I was really pleased with the slides, now I just had to deliver my talk. Why the nerves? It wasnt as if I had to impress anyone as we were all in the same boat. On the day I and another patient were the last item so there was plenty of time for the nerves to build! When it came to my turn I could hear my voice trembling and shaky as I started and my brain felt ok but it couldnt tell my mouth to relax and it got dryer and dryer but I got through it and people told me I didnt come across as nervous. Afterwards my consultant came up to me and gave me a big hug and told me how brilliant I was. Wow did that make it worthwhile! Preparing the talk made me realise just how far I have come on this journey since diagnosis nearly 2 years ago now and how hard it has been at times. As I said in my last post, One Year On, I find it difficult to accept that I have myeloma at the moment and that it will come back at some point. Someone asked my consultant at the conference whether she thought a cure would be found in the next 10 years and she said that she didnt think so. I really hope she is wrong.

Hopefully the link below will take you to the slides and the notes I used in the talk.

Patient experience talk on word with notes

 

The Great Manchester 10k Run

I wanted to post about doing the Manchester 10k run on 20th May before now but a holiday to the Italian Lakes and Switzerland (yes another!) got in the way.

Well I did it, it was bloody hard going though and I felt a tremendous sense of achievement – I wrote an account for publication on the Myeloma UK website/newsletter which will no doubt be heavily edited but what follows is what I wrote

The Bupa Great Manchester 10k Run 2012

I first did the Great Manchester 10k Run in 2009 when I was fit and well. On that occasion I raised money for Mind, a mental health charity, after a close friend of mine took her own life after struggling with mental illness. I found that the training in the wind and rain helped me come to terms with my friend’s death and I ran it in 68 minutes and really enjoyed the day and the physical challenge. I decided to enter again in 2010 but a combination of an injury and lack of motivation caused me to pull out and defer my place to 2011.

However in December 2010 I got diagnosed with multiple myeloma following emergency admission into hospital for kidney failure. Prior to that I had been feeling tired and had achey legs but my kidneys had deteriorated within a space of a week to 10 to 15% of normal function. I started treatment on 29 December 2010 on cyclosphamide, dexamethasone and thalidomide initially as part of the Myeloma X1 trial. After 1.5 cycles I had to stop taking thalidomide and come off the trial due to allergic reactions and too many side effects. I then started PAD and had two cycles of that which brought me into remission followed by a stem cell transplant on 1 September 2011.

The May 2011 10k had passed me by as I was in the midst of treatment and in no fit state to train for a run either mentally or physically but I did manage to celebrate my 50th birthday also in May.

I recovered fairly quickly after my stem cell transplant with about 14 days in hospital and then about 6 weeks of resting and walking a little more each day. A couple of months later I was sent the details of the Great Manchester run in May 2012 and thought, what the heck, I am going to enter this so I registered. My bone marrow biopsy after 3 months showed less than 5% abnormal cells and I was told I was in very good partial remission. I tramped around London, Dublin, Alicante on weekend breaks and got fitter and more active.

Training in earnest didnt really start till February 2012. I followed the same training plan as I did in 2009 starting with 20 minutes walk/run around 3 times a week and building up a little each week. I did find it a struggle at times and initially would come in from the run, go upstairs to shower and change and then find myself lying down for an hour as I felt so tired! But over the next couple of months my fitness levels improved and I didnt feel so tired afterwards.

After I was diagnosed with myeloma and during treatment which was tough going I got quite depressed and nearly threw out all my sports gear. Prior to being diagnosed I loved playing tennis, squash and did the odd run now and then. I thought that I would never do these things again even in remission as  these are high impact activities and as myeloma weakens the bones, I didnt think that it would  be possible. Instead I considered walking and more gentle activities such as yoga and tai chi. However my consultant told me that I could do what I liked providing I build up gently as my bones were as strong as anybody elses and my skeletal xrays had been normal.

As the day got nearer and I created my Justgiving page, received my Myeloma UK vest and fundraising pack and people started to sponsor me I realised it was actually going to happen and despite people telling me to take it easy my naturally competitive self wanted to do the best I could but I did find the training hard going. The final practice run was the Sunday before when I did 45 minutes but my pace was slow and laboured. I wondered whether I was taking on too much but was determined to do it even if I had to crawl round.

My parents were coming for the weekend to cheer me on and had also raised quite alot of money from their friends so the pressure was on! My wave started at 12.10 and as I walked through the crowds with my parents to find a suitable spot for them to cheer me on and then walked alone to the starting point and lined up with the other runners to warm up and then listen to an opera singer whose name I have forgotten singing You Raise Me Up, I felt very emotional thinking about what I had been through, what I was about to do and the fact that I never thought I would be able to do this again. I felt happy to be there and enjoyed and savoured the atmosphere of participating in a run involving 40,000 runners all running for charities that meant something to them.

Then the gun sounded and Bobby Charlton and other celebs waved us on from the podium and as I ran down Chepstow St I managed a smile and a wave to my parents and then began the hard slog round the course. When I got to the 4k mark I was surprised I had only done 4k and there was so much more to go but kept going. I got some advice from my boss last time I did it which was never stop and walk otherwise you wont be able to get going again. I stuck to that in 2009 and stuck to it in 2012 even though my jog was at a snails pace at times, it was a jog and not a walk. I kept going past the Old Trafford Football ground, home of my beloved football team and back down Chester Rd bolstered by the support from the crowd. I had my name above my race number and it was really good to hear people shouting come on Wendy!

On approaching the finish line back in the City centre on Deansgate, the crowds got denser and noisier which spurred me on and I managed a slight increase in pace and to feebly raise my arms as I got to the finish line!  Participants are told to keep moving so you dont clog up the runners coming in behind you and then I handed in the microchip which I had attached to one of my trainers so that my time could be recorded and then texted to me later.

I was delighted and relieved to have completed the run but my next task was finding my parents who werent at our agreed meeting place. I had given them my phone, purse and clothes to look after so had no means of contacting them, no money and no clothes to change into!

I had also arranged to meet some other runners who were raising money for Myeloma UK at a pub later.  It was good to see their Myeloma UK orange running vests as I hadnt seen anyone with a Myeloma UK vest along the way. Eventually I was reunited with my parents at Jamie Oliver’s restaurant for lunch and a celebratory drink after I had drank plenty of water of course. I dont know who was more exhausted, them from wandering around Manchester or me. When I got my phone back I found out from a text from BUPA that I had completed the run in 68 minutes, exactly the same time as in 2009. I was stunned and delighted as I didnt think that my pace had been as fast as 2009 and it was such a struggle getting round but it must have been all in my head!

By the time we got home we were all shattered and an early night was in order. Surprisingly although I was a little stiff I was able to walk the next day and set about the task of gathering in the sponsorship money. I was overwhelmed by the support I got from family and friends and their generosity. I was chuffed by my time and personal achievement and have raised £1000 for Myeloma UK. Would I do it again next year? Definitely!

Ps It is not too late to make a donation to Myeloma UK, check out my page at www.justgiving.com/wendyduffield