Last year, I had a snow storm on my birthday. I’d never had snow in October before. I had pinpointed that as the time when my seemingly normal, perfect life started going a little bit loopy. I had hoped that it was a year thing – just something that might be a little off kilter. And I looked earnestly to my next birthday thinking everything might shift back into gear.
Well. This year I had a hurricane.
Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast at about 8 p.m. EDT on October 29, 2012. Michael and I spent my birthday, glued to the weather channel while we had power and playing Yazhtee by candlelight when there was none. For some, Sandy was a devastating force. She filled subways with water, knocked down trees and left millions without power. But we were fine, sort of.
The more devastating force had come in the morning – in the sound of my mother’s worried voice.
“The myeloma’s back,” she said. “I know it is.”
She had been expressing this fear to me for a few days – from worries of headaches to the return of nausea.
Dad completed stem cell collection on October 16th and was supposed to come in this week for consent before transplant. In between that, Mom and Dad had taken a trip to the Hill Country when he started having tooth pain and ultimately ended up getting a root canal. There were no complications.
But then he had progressive nausea, didn’t feel like eating, had a feeling of heaviness in his abdomen and persistent weakness. Mom was positive that the meeting wouldn’t be good.
And she was right.
His LDH has jumped back up to 9657. His Kappa grew to 5710 from 110 on October 24th.
So we’ve been pulled from the stem cell process and sent back to our Myeloma doctor. It’s looking like we need to find something else to keep the myeloma at bay.
Dad’s disease is very aggressive – this isn’t the first time the numbers have gone up after chemo. Each time the myeloma puts us in this hurricane spin, Mom says that the doctors tell her Dad’s chances of the stem cell working goes down. Mom gets boggled down in the statistics and the fear of the isolation of the transplant. I’m not quite sure what to think, only that I hope we’ll get back to where we were last month soon and just keep going.
Anyways, it’s time to re-gear and start again. Sigh. And think positively that I’m safe in MA and not in NYC where my old apartment STILL has no electricity or water. Yikes.