My doctor believes what I have on my tongue & throat is thrush. He didn’t look at it, but listened to my description of the problem. I have a rx to pick up today, and I’ll see how that helps. It feels better already today.
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I think dex has produced a new side effect for me. I’ll see my local oncologist today, so I can ask him about this. Because I get some nasty indigestion from dex (even though I take a prescription drug to try to help this), I am careful about what I eat on dex [...]
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I have a new drug to help me sleep. It’s called temazepam. I should be taking it now! I took my dex at 8:00 pm last night, and am still up at 2:30 am. I have to give it a try.
There is one good thing about dex. It’s [...]
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Source: 411Cancer.com “Cancer Experts leading the way to optimal cancer care.”
According to results presented at the 2003 European Hematology Association meeting, further evidence indicates that AranespÆ (darbepoetin alfa) is effective at improving anemia and fatigue in patients with lymphoid cancers.
Lymphoid cancers, sometimes referred to as lymphoproliferative diseases, are cancers that originate in the immune [...]
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When you have cancer, you have to accept a lot of changes. Sometimes I just sit and wish for my old life back, but it never does any good. I still have the disease to deal with.
One of the drugs I’m on is dexamethasone. It’s been causing some cosmetic changes, [...]
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I’ve spent a small fortune over the last few years on pillows in an effort to do something about persistent neck pain I’ve had. I kept thinking a special pillow was going to help while I slept. I gave up finally. I dug up my favorite 20 year old pillows and put [...]
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At last - after more than a month on Coumadin - I have an INR over 2. I take 10 or 12.5 mg/day of Coumadin now, and hope that will keep the INR where it needs to be.
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I had good news today. Dr. Orlowski called to tell me that my serum IgA is now at 829 mg/dL (ref range 40-390). I started out in January at 4,625 mg/dL. I’ve been on 50 mg Thalomid daily since April 4th, and 40 mg dexamethasone weekly (after the initial 4 cycles of [...]
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Since there are several hundred readers of this blog every month and it’s well indexed in the search engines, I wanted to include this from a member of the ACOR MM mailing list. Please discuss anything that has to do with your care with your doctor. This is just information from another patient [...]
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I need to find something to help me sleep on Monday nights. I have tried Ambien and Xanax, and neither seems to help me get through the entire night. One of the problems is that when you drink the amount of water I do, you have to get up in the middle of [...]
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Today I have to start collecting urine for a period of 24 hours to be tested or proteins. This is oe of the things I dislike most. Well, maybe it runs behind bone marrow biopsies and dexamethasone. Probably a lot of other thigs I haven’t even experienced yet. I usually just [...]
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Natural Heath magazine had an article this month about the possible benefits of turmeric (curcumin). Th article is entitled, “Prevent Cancer with Turmeric.” It appears on page 28 of Natural Health’s August 2003 issue. It’s not online yet, but their web site is http://www.naturalhealthmag.com
If you’re interested, please contact me, and I’ll [...]
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My sister let me know that she sent out 20 letters for the IMF’s “Mail for the Cure” campaign. Like I said before, I sent out over 40 letter myself, and had 8 responses. I took it personally, since I know everyone I sent letters to!
Mail for the Cure
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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Research has indicated that chronic stress can take a hefty toll on a person’s health, and a new study offers one potential reason why.
Investigators found that older people under chronic stress had higher-than-normal elevations of interleukin-6 (IL-6), an immune-system protein in the blood that promotes inflammation. IL-6 has been [...]
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I had an appointment to have my eyes checked today. I ordered a pair of prescription sunglasses, since mine broke about 10 years ago. I really can’t stand how all the frames are tiny now. Fads really stink. Is it normal to have to pay $400 for glasses?
I went for acupuncture [...]
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I picked this card up at a local shop, from the stacks of business cards left there by entrepreneurs trying to drum up sales. I blurred out the names and telephone numbers before publishing it to the web, but if you really must have skins and stuff you can get in touch with me [...]
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There was an article in the Boston Globe online called, “Advances begin to tame cancer” from 7/6/2003. The following quote is taken from that article:
An audacious prediction The prediction that pain and death from cancer
will be eliminated by 2015 — rendering it essentially a chronic, old age
disease — [...]
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Today I had a 30 minute infusion of Zometa. Before I began, I had some blood drawn and sent up to the lab so my creatinine could be checked. It was .8 mg/dL, which is ok for me. It’s always .7 or .8. I don’t know what it was like years ago, [...]
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Yesterday I went to the Healthy Back Store in Cary, NC to try out some mattresses. At one point, I had called Craftmatic about their beds, and decided against them for a few reasons. Primarily, there is no place you can test them. Secondly, the cost is prohibitive. The Healthy Back [...]
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We drove over to Charlotte, NC today to see John Edward. John Edward has a television program called “Crossing Over.” I still have to think about what I saw and heard.
I don’t believe he is a fake, and I don’t believe there were plants in the audience.
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This is the package my thalidomide is dispensed in. The cost of the 200 mg a day as prescribed is over $1500 a month. The manufacturer has an assistance program to help folks who cannot pay, but the income requirements are so low that regular middle class people don’t qualify. If my [...]
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The National Cancer Institute web site has a search function you can use to look for clinical trials. http://cancer.gov/search/clinical_trials/search_clinicaltrials.aspx. There are other sites that provide the same feature, but I’ll have to research them and possibly list them later on.
I was offered one trial at Duke, which was “A Multi-Center Randomized Study of Vincristine, [...]
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One of my oldest friends is coming to visit this weekend. We’ve known each other almost 25 years now, and seen each other through everything imaginable. She knows me better than anyone, and accepts me just the way I am. It’s evolved into a totally stress-free friendship. Sure, there have been difficulties [...]
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I often have a mild sore throat, and I’m not sure what it comes from. I’ll have to ask my doctor about it when I see him on the 23rd. Could it be a side effect of dex? It feels like my throat was burned - that same feeling you’d have if [...]
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Here’s some advice I got today from a new friend who was diagnosed with MM in 1997. He had the tandem transplants at ACRC and then an unrelated matched donor transplant at Baylor in Dallas, TX in 1999.
Here are some things to remember that I have learned: 1) Multiple Myeloma is a beatable cancer. [...]
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