It’s now Day +22. That’s a lot of days since the last time I wrote. That probably means things haven’t exactly gone perfectly smoothly. At Day +8, I was on a good path, with white blood cell counts and platelets rising at a healthy pace, and I wasn’t feeling that…

Day +8 Have you ever had a week in which each day felt like it lasted more than a week? I have. Fortunately, I can report that so far I have experienced no serious complications or side effects of the treatment. Each day we report to the clinic for labwork…

“Day -1" and “Day-Zero” are Done I have now made it through “Day -1” (Infusion of Melphalan chemo) and “Day Zero” (Infusion of my stem cells aka “The Transplant.”) Both days went generally smoothly and anti-climactically, with no major hiccups (except for literal hiccups — see below). Thursday was Melphalan…

I just looked back at my last post, in which I wrote I was heading back to LA for “a few weeks of R&R.” That was on March 7, 2020(!), so those “few weeks” turned into over 14 months due to a certain coronavirus. Since then I’ve been on medications…

Mission (Stem Cell Collection) Accomplished My last post was on Day 12 (Sunday March 1). I had just started receiving twice daily shots to boost my white cell counts and stimulate stem cell production. A couple of patients had told me the shots would cause extreme bone pain, but I…

Chemo Time I am now on Day 12 of this treatment cycle. On days 1–4 I received the major meds. Four of those meds were via 24-hr nonstop IVs — I was connected to and carried around a camera-type bag with the chemo inside. …

Jason’s Adventures in Little Rock II Since October, I’ve been continuing my treatments (daily thalidomide; weekly steroids and Velcade; and Daratumamab every other week) at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in LA. These meds have knocked out over 90% of the myeloma so far, but when I started the treatment it was…

Getting Ready to Head Home This week I had my first bump in the road in the form of food poisoning. Monday started like any other here and ended with me awake most of the night wishing we hadn’t picked up takeout Chinese food from a chain restaurant for dinner…

Field Trip I am now in week 3 of the first treatment cycle. During week 3 and week 4, there is only 1 infusion per week (on Wednesday), which means that for 6 days in a row we have nothing scheduled. That’s a lot of days of non-stop cable news so we headed to Memphis (2 hours by car) for a mini-vacation. We covered the basics (Graceland, Civil Rights Museum, Beale Street and lots of BBQ) in 2 days, and made it back to Little Rock on Saturday in time for the annual Cheese Dip Championship. Over 20 cheese dips were in competition and we voted for our favorites but didn’t find out who won because it was 95 degrees and sunny and the festival was in a parking lot with absolutely no shade! Fortunately the cheese dips did not cause additional GI distress.