Monday, 4th August

We are home from a fantastic 4 nights away.  I am so grateful for the relaxing time away and an unforgettably special time spent with Jimmy.

As you know we went straight through to UCTPAH for Jimmy's monthly Zobone treatment, bloods and our appointment with Prof to get the results of the bone marrow biopsy.  In the first bone marrow biopsy 60% of the sample taken was cancerous (there is a better medical way of saying this but this is in layman's terms).  In the latest bone marrow biopsy there has been a 50% improvement of the 60%, but for stem cell transplant purposes Prof needed this to be 90% or more, he was very disappointed..  This means that for now, stem cell transplant is off the cards.  Within the next two weeks Jimmy will start another 2 to 3 or 3 to 4 cycles of chemo in the hopes these numbers will all come down.  I asked Prof to explain how this works because he told us that he was stopping chemo because Jimmy had plateaued and I asked him what difference the chemo would make now?  He explained that he is going to change the chemo drugs.   He will continue with the Velcade and then add some others.  If there is still not enough of an improvement after these next cycles, he will go ahead with stem cell transplant but will do two stem cell transplants back to back.  He explained that we must understand that the higher all these numbers are prior to stem cell transplant, the shorter remission and the long term picture will be, so our aim is to work at getting them down.  I also asked him that surely if Jimmy is given a huge dose of chemo before they harvest his stem cells and another huge dose prior to doing the transplant, wouldn't this kill all the cancer that is left?  He explained that these big doses should do that but he cannot rely on the hopes that they do, and feels it is more important to get them as low as possible now and anything that happens around stem cell transplant would be a bonus.

My thoughts:  To be honest, I had a weird feeling we weren't going to get good news today and I was already feeling teary this morning.  That terrible M protein reading of 21 has been like a niggle in my brain!  I feel like we are starting all over again, it even feels like a bad dream again and maybe tomorrow morning none of this happened.  I had to fight back crying and a quivering lip during our appointment.  Jimmy is being very positive....he has to be the most positive person I have ever known, but even he was very quiet in the car on the way home.

Tomorrow we will feel better, gather up lots of courage and continue on this journey of ours together.