I have been waiting, for the past three months, to be able to write that we have overcome, beaten, destroyed and killed the cancer. That is not the case. I liken it to one of those huge ocean liners heading full tilt in one direction and then needing to change course in the opposite direction. It takes time to turn the ship around and it takes time to stop the devastation of the cancer in Bob's body.
The daratumumab and the dex held the line for two months. The blood numbers that are followed as markers did not show any increases in the cancer but neither did the numbers show great gains in defeating the cancer. A month ago Dr. Bahlis decided to add the chemo drug Pomalyst to Bob's regime. This is a drug that he takes every day for three weeks and has one week off of it. Bob failed this drug---it had lost it's effectiveness after a time. The cancer pharmacy did not want to allow Bob to have it because it had failed. HOWEVER Dr. Bahlis made it plain that this is a totally different protocol using it with the daratmumab. It was explained to us thus: the daratumumab attaches to the cancer cells so that Bob's own immune system will then be able to find the cancer and kill those cells. This can be slow for several reasons in Bob's case. The pomalyst is more like an atomic bomb. The drug goes in and kills lots of cells at one time and hopefully diminishing the cancer cells. Working together these two drugs should move along the death knell of cancer cells more quickly.
Bob has now completed month 1 of 4 of every other week of dararumumab and dex. He has also completed month 1 of using the pomalyst. We have gone from feeling defeated to having a true sense of hope.
In June Kappa Free-----192. in July Kappa Free---33.10
Lambda Free---1.35 Lambda Free--5.42
Ratio-----------142.22 Ratio------------6.11
The accepted ratio (on our print out) should be 0.26-1.65
So we are doing the hAPpy dAnCE.
This joy comes at a cost to Bob's body as every drug has side affects. Knowing, once again, that most of Bob's physical struggles are resulting from the chemo gives us a renewed hope. As tough and often debilitating the side affects are, for now ,we know that the cancer is not in the organs wrecking havoc. Some of the symptoms can be handled by tweaking the chemo (which was done today) or tweaking the drugs that counteract the side affects. The pain from the damage to bones done by the cancer is under control. All in all we are figuring things out.
Bob and I have been on this journey a full eight years now. That is a lot of time and energy invested!!!! Makes me think waaaay back to when Bob proposed to me. He thought he had invested enough money on hamburgers at the A&W that he couldn't afford not to marry me. Those were the days of the car hops and no seat belts-- so romantic!!! How did we ever survive?
We are surviving dealing with cancer. More than surviving---conquerors because of Jesus. The hope we have for His best and ultimately eternal life.
1Peter 1:3 "All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus from the dead."
