Last October my doctor decided I no longer needed bloodwork done every month. Every three months was enough. That turned out to be bad timing. My latest test is not a disaster or anything, but my maintenance chemo med is definitely losing some punch.
This is not surprising. My understanding of the literature is that Revlimid generally works for about two years, and I’ve been taking it for 30 months. When my M-protein level gets above one, it will probably be time to switch to a third-line medication. Luckily, there’s been an explosion of new drugs for multiple myeloma lately, so there are several to choose from.
Those will eventually give out too, but the really good news is that this is no longer necessarily a death sentence. There have been some spectacular results recently in clinical trials of CAR-T therapy and various other methods of genetically altering T-cells to become better cancer fighters. In an impressive number of cases, it puts multiple myeloma into complete remission, which has never before been possible. Still, the longer my other meds hold out the better, since I’d just as soon let the clinical trials go on as long as possible before I myself become a guinea pig. However, when the time finally comes, I’m going to try to get into one of these trials and it might actually cure me.
Of course, these days I have strong motivation to hold on. Not only do I want to be around to see Donald Trump lose in 2020, but I also want to be around long enough to see Atrios eat crow over driverless cars. Keep those posts coming, Dr. A!
